For a film about art, it's not well made enough, and strangely leaves almost no impression. It doesn't grab you the way it could've with a better writer. For both a horror and a satire, its screenplay is not tight or juicy enough. Like the art pieces in the film, you sort of look at Velvet Buzzsaw and wonder what the point of it all is.
That's a pitch for a movie with endless potential. It could be great. The Sisters Brothers is merely fine. It requires us to invest so much in the characters. I did, for a while, until I got tired of them and was hungry for conflict.
I was into this family drama crossed with a coming-of-age story, though the former is definitely superior. Not that Ed Oxenbould isn't a fantastic actor---he can be, but there are some moments here that we didn't need to see from his point of view.
I've seen countless of these sports stories already. Southpaw has just enough heart and energy to win the round. With a lesser director and a lesser star, the storyline of Southpaw would have possibly made a Lifetime channel product.
Too shallow a movie to work, but it does have two really good performances. Demolition is a movie that has a cool person as its lead, but not doing anything particularly cool.
While you’re there, there is an extremely engaging storyline that slowly dissolves and leads itself to a final shot that cranks up the metaphor to the highest point; It’s the film’s idea of a climax.
Criss-crossing between a family drama and war thriller doesn't work in the slightest, and it took a while for the film to find its ground to cover. Its third act delivers intense, heartbreaking moments, reaching the dramatic excellence I was anticipating.
Jake Gyllenhaal, with his cold and lifeless eyes, in one of the best, most precise performances in film history, is able to create a character that directly affects us psychologically. As an actor, there aren't much higher achievements than to be able to have the audience so fully engrossed in your character, and pay full attention to every move he makes, trying to study this man, anticipating, but also dreading his eventual fate.
What End of Watch does right is the chemistry and character building. It falters when it tries to force situations. Or when Ayer tries too hard to build a style.
What this masterpiece excels at is that it doesn’t focus on the killings, or even the killer. It’s about the persuasiveness; the restless nights that are spent; the extreme determination to find something—anything—even though the hints fail them over and over.
The main characters of True Romance are people who get involved in affairs that only happen in the movies they watch. In the climax they seem as stunned as the viewers might be.
I liked the film most when it's a character drama about a mentally unstable woman. The third act stumbles as it focuses too much on a debate about whether Catherine wrote a notebook---which contains a mathematical proof---or her father.
None of the cast seems to be giving great effort here. This is the weakest performance I’ve seen from Gyllenhaal, who usually is the strong part of otherwise middling films like this one. Director Gavin Hood can definitely create suspense even when switching around locations and people (He certainly did that in the underrated Eye in the Sky). Maybe Hood and the actors didn’t connect much with the dull screenplay. I didn’t either.
Twisted and tense, and a little above other similar works. The writing by Leigh Whannell seems carefully planned and never strictly follows any formulas. Just like Jigsaw’s traps.
Its message is half-baked, and ending unsatisfying. But stay for Dafoe’s spotlight performance, the intriguing filmmaking by director Vasilis Katsoupis, and also the crisp and clear sound design making use of the 5.1 format.
After the opening, the rest of Dial of Destiny entertained me in an old-fashioned way. It is still adventurous, curious, and fun, which is all I ask for in an Indy movie made in 2023.
The epilogue of the film is too hesitant and vague while the rest of the film is neither of those things. We just need satisfaction, and for the film to inspire some feeling in us. You Can Live Forever doesn’t do enough of this.
It seems like Insidious: Chapter 2 is a more effective affair than the first. If not, at least its script has shown improvement by removing unnecessarily long and cliched moments (The seance scene here is shorter and not as predictable). This is the kind of sequel that one would most likely appreciate if they liked the first one.
With this kind of plot, it is commendable that the film doesn’t step into melodrama territory. Its screenplay by Brad Silberling has the right kind of intensity and insight. The dialogue here makes you think, and the theme is delivered without feeling forced.
But what’s so remarkable about this movie is the craft of Brian De Palma, a meticulous filmmaker with intense attention to detail, but also attentive of the grand scale of things.
Has one of the best first half of a horror movie I’ve seen, then it turns into the kind of movie I hoped it wouldn’t be, but then it impressed me again with a genuinely well designed and innovative sequence (the Red Door scene) that I loved, along with the ending.
Watching his most famous films, it seems like the works of Woody Allen are often literature as much as they are motion pictures. The care he has for the screenplay is often above many other filmmakers. The characters he constructed are specific. The arcs of the protagonists align and the situations feel carefully orchestrated.
A character movie that is breathtakingly assembled and carefully handled. As action movie entertainment, the unpredictability of it stands out. Gosling also does.
There are some legitimately interesting scenes that could’ve been explored more (like the science fiction-heavy elements), but there are some tiresome periods of awkward high school scenarios.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reveals itself to be a deeply emotional story about love, memory, and what we can and cannot move on from. The superb Oscar-winning screenplay from Charlie Kaufman inspires two genuinely flawless performances from Carrey and Winslet.
The Covenant is a more than competent war movie with explosions and gunfire, but it is also a gripping survival adventure and a story of integrity and unity.
An entertaining mix of brainless robot action and a coming-of-age subplot. Also some fish-out-of-water moments that play like a 1990s Disney fantasy movie. Reminds us why the Transformers franchise became so popular in the first place.
As many bad projects he makes, Roland Emmerich is a perfect director for this kind of movie. Looking at his opening shot of CGI-icebergs, I was immediately immersed into this world. He is an expert in creating the “calm before the storm” atmosphere. He can really show us the large scope of blizzards and the aftermath.
After the very enjoyable, dialogue-driven first act, the film arrives at "average arthouse drama" territory. Because apparently most arthouse dramas these days need some long and silent scenes, close-ups that overstay their welcomes, and the camera drifting out of focus then quickly back in focus again.
