virginiaproud

Nothing could be worse than watching these four fine actors chew their way through the cliches and contrivances to their ultimately unrealistic happy endings.

Ben Stiller does a fine job here as Brad, wallowing in status envy as he considers the perceived success of his fellow graduates. It's a very watchable flick but honestly, it's not that profound, your basic grass is greener situation. Brad isn't facing any challenge or conflict except his own negative self evaluation, and the sum of the action is that over the time frame of a college visit with his son to Boston, we get to watch him beat himself up while still successfully pulling strings to get his son into Harvard. One of the characters comments that everything he's describing can be summed up as privileged white male problems. I felt this was meant to be a 'deep moment'. It wasn't.

I highly recommend seeing this, but it is an uncomfortable watch as it should be given the topic. Both Mara and Mendelsohn are terrific exploring the range of emotions and justifications connected to such a disturbing adult/child relationship. That there is any ambiguity at all in how we respond to Ray's character is testament to the writing and the work of Mendelsohn. This movie has not left my mind for several days since watching it.

The concept promises much more than this movie delivers. Lot's of beautiful looking scenes where not much of consequence happens. A child that is indulged to be sure, ignored when suited and once beaten (that we see), but it doesn't adds up to a childhood or parents that could be accused of sowing of the seeds of a sociopath. To further complicate, we are shown only a brief snap shot of this childhood, then a huge time jump to reveal, for the final few minutes... The Leader. That's about it. It was OK, heavy on artistic pretension and the ushering in of a new directing prodigy, which is possibly why critics are turning somersaults over it.

I'm not offended by animated food arse **** I didn't much get my PC knickers into a knot over the racial stereotypes. I just flat out thought this movie was boring. The humour is set to the lowest possible level, it dragged one or two laughs of me at first, but the jokes wore thin. There's a trace of some great ideas in there, it probably sounded really funny over beers and bongs ten + years ago when they came up with it. But in the final execution, it doesn't even look like quality animation. It's just a really appalling waste of people's time, both those involved and those watching.

The horror genre relies on characters with everything to lose making stupid choices. A locked door with instructions not to enter can only be an invitation to go straight down to that dark basement (alone) to take a look-see. But this one is absolutely stuffed full of genre cliches, camera angles, lighting, one note characters and a twist that managed to be somewhat predictable yet also totally ridiculous at the same time. Clearly the writer just gave up on plot. Bottom line, there's only so much wandering around in the dark looking scared and whispering "who's there" I can take, before I begin to fast forward. But to end on a positive note... an extremely short running time. Especially if you fast forward.

I would watch Mirren and Rickman tying their shoes for an hour, but I struggle with propaganda, a genre this clearly falls into. Not one of the players is fleshed out as character, their sole purpose throughout is to embody the military/political stereotypes and take the various moral positions of the arguments for and against drone warfare. The collateral victim and her family are only fleshed out enough to encourage our sympathetic because the father encourages the education of his daughter. They are obviously 'good Muslims'. Unfortunately the debate and prevarication to save this one girl, putting at risk countless others as the suicide bombers prepare for attack, rings hollow no matter how many teary eyed shots we are shown of the pilot and his crewman at the controls.

A confusing journey into darkness. The protagonist doesn't engage, we don't learn anything about him, and the madness that surrounds him springs up without much provocation. The back half of the film is then dedicated to chaos, the slightly surrealist tone and images were reminiscent of Peter Greenaway, with the grubbiness of Mad Max. Unfortunately interesting imagery is not enough, with half an hour to go, I was considering turning it off. I didn't, but it was really just more of the same til the end.

I had to give it 3 because it just looks so amazing but in reality you are sitting through a 2 hour car chase. It's not even a 2 hour car chase with purpose, they spend half the time driving away and then turn around and go back to the beginning. Everyone looks really dirty if not disfigured. Token use of disabled people to show how **** it is for humans in the future. Charlize does her best, everyone else has just turned up for the costumes and the cheque.

Just a mediocre film. Aniston is working hard, too hard probably. The big issue in this movie is that character studies require a character we care about. No amount of convincing physicalisation, artificial scars and bad makeup are enough. Unfortunately that's all we are offered. Nothing about the accident, injury, or Aniston's situation is explored. Probably the writers though they were being edgier leaving it all unsaid and implied. Yeah, we can figure out what's happened here (unless you're really dense), but frankly, it's boring. I won't spoil the ending, but I could see it coming a mile off. There are promising cameos from a multitude of familiar faces but they occupy the screen for mere moments and it's hard to know why they've bothered to say yes to this project which gives them so little to do. I guess they were all recruited so the trailer could feature their scenes and make the film look interesting!

I was so fascinated by what I'd just seen that I had to immediately Google and learn about the true story behind Frank. There's a lot to unravel in this movie, but you can also watch it for the pure ridiculous entertainment of the premise. It's not perfect, there are moments where you are simply waiting for the next thing to happen, but I never stopped waiting anxiously to find out what would happen to Frank.

This film doesn't take itself too seriously and as a result it is tremendous fun. A horror/comedy mash up that gets the balance absolutely right - it manages to poke a bit of fun at the genre tropes while still delivering genuine mystery and chills. It's a clever script, making the most of it's setting and wonderful performances from the whole cast. I have been recommending it every chance I get, which is usually a good sign!

This is a fun romp, great performances and the script delivers some nice surprises. Nothing you want to take too seriously, just pop the corn and pour the wine.

A perfect movie for a lazy evening. Nothing ground breaking here, but it's entertaining enough and has some lovely moments. I enjoyed the performances from both leads very much, and Luke Wilson is great, very understated which makes the eventual crisis all the more compelling. The only really painful thing was the Australian accent on the scuba instructor, but I always find the fake Aussie accent pretty painful. Why he decided to play it with an accent God only knows.

I am convinced that all the critics are giving this bouquets because they are scared not to. I mean, it's Linklater and it's a 12 year project and it's so frightfully "well observed". But did we observe anything interesting, or insightful...really? Come on, really? The early promise that we'd see the boy grow through the emotional impact of divorce and domestic violence and being slightly unconventional, but it never eventuates and ultimately it all just leads to your common or garden teen's self indulgent prattling. There were some terribly clever things going on, especially the editing of the time jumps, and I was always curious to see how the actors had aged, including the next hairstyle choice. On the positive Linklater didn't take us down conventional routes, there was no 'coming of age sex scene" for example, or any 'teen makes bad judgement call and gets into trouble' scene. But neither has he built any significant conflict. I wouldn't call this film an utter waste of my time, but I've no idea what people are raving about.

I absolutely loved this book but the movie, what a waste of time. After the the first 15 mins I discovered you can fast forward this entire film at 2x and not miss a thing. Everything is so agonisingly drawn out and with absence of any meaningful dialogue it actually feels like you're watching in normal time! The whole thing is Scarlett driving or standing with a dopey slack jawed expression - it's not remotely sexy or entertaining to watch her, nothing is conveyed, and not even for the occasional absence of her clothes is it worth sitting though this huge stinking pile or nonsense.

Please, please, even if you think the lush Ms Johannsen poops rainbows, if you are a thinking person with more than a passing interest in logic and coherent storytelling, think twice before spending time on this film. This film has a fascinating premise which is then totally subjugated into a chase'em/shoot 'em movie. All the action sequences are borderline ridiculous, the final gun fight, the manic drive across Paris... why? And those of us who bought in to the idea and (the first third, despite cliched stock shots is quite promising) are deprived of any meaningful, or even better than fantastical, discussion of the core theme. Rubbish. Just rubbish.