TruthSpeaks Reviews

Begin Again (II) (2013)

Slightly Interesting

[6/10 · 12 July 2014]

This is the story of two aspiring musicians in New York City. Unfortunately, is isn't very well-written. Writer/director Andrew Carney, who also created Once, just isn't a good writer. The on screen talent is there; Mark Ruffalo, Kiera Knightly, Adam Levine, but film is a collaborative medium. The footage of the lower East Side of New York City is probably this movie's best feature. It recalls Manhattan. What can you say about a movie that makes these three actors look their worst and puts them in a series of not very believable situations? We are supposed to believe that you can put Kiera Knightly in a small club and have her perform a song but people will not look at her because she isn't wearing makeup. You'd have to get someone with much worse bone structure to make that even believable. We are supposed to believe that Mark Ruffalo is a successful music industry figure who wants music to be free. That's not what they were known for. Supposedly Kiera Knightly objects to wearing makeup to the point that she'd rather fail in her profession. It's not like someone asked her to dress up like Rihanna. The things the characters are supposedly fighting for seem less than believable, or even necessary.

You hear a lot of music. Unfortunately, it is vapid and forgettable. This makes the plot even more unlikely. Supposedly there are issues about musical integrity. That plot line just doesn't work because the actual music is vapid.

I saw this movie because it was the only thing in the theaters that would appeal to a grown up woman in months. I guess is was better than not seeing a movie, but not as good as a good movie.

Mud (2012)

Wow

[8/10 · 3 May 2013]

This is a movie that stays with you. It's a real movie about people, and a place--not car chases and explosions. I don't agree with the mixed reviews and complaints about the length of the movie. Matthew McConnahey is well-cast. All of the actors do a good work; Reese Witherspoon, Sam Sheppard. Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland do a great job playing the child characters. The Mississippi river is like a character in the movie, which evokes Huckleberry Finn, as others have noted. The settings are magnificent. In a sea of manufactured movies, it's nice to see something that was crafted by human beings. I would recommend this movie to those who are interested.

The audience in the theater I was in seemed absorbed.

Arthur Newman (2012)

Boring and Pointless

[2/10 · 2 May 2013]

The bad reviews are right; this movie is boring and pointless. The principle reason is the script. There's just nothing there. It's hard to see why, out of the countless scripts Hollywood has to choose from, this one was made into a movie and brought to a theater near you.

Colin Firth and Emily Blunt are wasted in this piece of nothing. To make it worse, you are seeing an especially frumpy version of Colin Firth, made to look like a middle-aged Rotarian in the seventies, aviator glasses and all. The premise is that he is a floor manager for UPS, with a fiancée and a son. He just decides to abandon them by faking his own death so he can be a golf pro in the Midwest using a fake identity. His character is blank and bland with no interesting characteristics. Even his flight from reality is bland. Emily Blunt plays a bad girl who is also running away, but there's nothing really interesting there either. I walked out of the movie half way through when the characters were supposedly getting together while pretending to be an elderly couple (don't ask).

Most theaters chains have a refund policy. They will refund your money if you leave in the first half hour or fifteen minutes of the movie.

Madame X (2010)

Too often violent and disjointed

[3/10 · 3 June 2012]

This movie promoted as a campy, candy-colored romp. While parts of it are that, they are interspersed with lots of violence, including slashing a child with a sword. Much of the violence is directed towards the transsexuals although some of it comes from them in the way of vengeance. Part of that is sexual violence, or the threat of sexual violence, from the protagonist towards her enemy. One minute there's singing drag queens, the next, things are really heavy.

The plot is about drag queens/transsexuals in Indonesia and the harsh repression they face. In the surreal fantasy world of this movie, a superhero emerges who will take vengeance on their behalf through supernatural means. There is also a subplot about human trafficking. Apparently the same kind of repressive, right wing idiots we are having trouble with in the US have dopplegangers in other places.

The protagonist just doesn't look anything like a woman. He/she is just not prepossessing and seems sort of vacant and disjointed much of the time. It was a little hard to picture her as a superhero. One of her skills is supposed to be magical dancing. That's hard to take because she isn't a good dancer.

The plot gyroscopes all over the place. Even within the fantasy world of this movie, many times you feel like they fell through the rabbit hole into a weird sub-plot that seemed to go on too long. They could cut this movie down considerably.

The visuals ARE often often stunning. The sets and costumes were often striking. The Indonesian dance troupe is great. Some money was spent on this movie.

I'm a heterosexual female. I do see movies at the gay film festival where I live, as do a lot of film buffs. As for how other types of people might like this movie, it was shown at the film festival in the middle of the day on Sunday. The theater was about half full. About a third of the audience was laughing a lot. About a third or half where clapping at the end of the movie. There were some transsexuals there and they really seemed to like this movie a lot. So some people liked this movie a lot more than I did, but beware of false advertising: this isn't a "candy-colored romp" for most people. Not suitable for minors, and not because it's about gays/transsexuals.

Boy (I) (2010)

No it isn't

[4/10 · 4 May 2012]

This is not a comedy. The subject matter is somewhat dark; what it's like t grow up with a father who prefers a life of crime to his own children.

Are we grading movies from New Zealand on a curve? Almost every internationally distributed movie from New Zealand is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Only it isn't. What I have noticed is that they tend to have a dark streak to them, a sense of menace. Isn't this supposed to be a pretty benevolent place, free health care, a generous social welfare system, etc. The filmmaker spoke at the showing I went to. He was saying that in the eighties, they had ads on New Zealand television telling people not to leave their keys in their cars. I guess they save the darkness for their movies. The events in this movie did not happen to the filmmaker, who said he gets on just fine with his father.

This is a professionally produced movie. The acting is very good which is surprising because apparently none of the children were professional actors. The filmmaker played the role of the father, and he was very good. The filmmaker did a good job of portraying neglected children and their broken father. But it tends to get monotonous. Similar things happen over and over. The plot is layers of monotony and darkness.

The film changes genres three times. You get the feeling that was more lazy than anything, just throwing anything in there. At first it seems like a comedy, like a lighter, less creepy Wes Anderson and you are delighted. Very shortly it gets dark and monotonous but with touches of comedy. In the end there is a dance scene over the credits.

I didn't walk out of this movie but I would possibly not see it again if I knew what it was like. The filmmaker is pretty funny if you get the chance to hear him speak. This movie did not hold the attention of the pre-school children that were there and they were very disruptive. Had they been able to pay attention to it the subject matter would have been too dark for them. Leave the pre-school kids at home. I'm guessing 8 or 10 is the youngest age for this movie.

Damsels in Distress (2011)

Ten minutes was enough

[4 May 2012]

I walked out of this movie after ten minutes. There were endless scenes of vapid young people engaging in pseudo-intellectual discussions. This movie lacks the "narrative drive" of "Barcelona" or "The Last Days of Disco." Those movies meandered, this one didn't get out of park. Aren't people supposed to get better at their jobs as they gain more experience? How is this filmmaker becoming more of an amateur?

Most theater chains will refund your money if you leave early enough. Some give you fifteen minutes into the movie, some give you half an hour. IMDb says I have to make this review ten lines long, which is one line for every minute of this movie I could stand to watch. Made it.

Young Adult (2011)

Kind of Slow and Boring

[4/10 · 17 December 2011]

This isn't a romantic comedy. It's an indie movie about a depressed woman who spends a lot of time moping. It's the type of film that shows every little thing: she's getting a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, she's staring into space, she's looking at her phone, she's lying in bed, a clock ticks, a sock falls to the floor . . . The cinematography has that faded, bleached out look a lot of Indie films have. The locations are drab. The beauteous Charlize Theron looks washed out in most of the movie. That could serve a purpose, but here it just seems like a waste of a natural resource.

Charlize Theron's character impulsively comes back to her hometown to seduce her married ex-boyfriend. She was the beautiful prom queen and is used to getting her way. She's missing some pieces. That could make for a funny movie, but they made this character clinically depressed. I just didn't buy that. The type of woman this is would careen from victim to victim deploying her beauty to maximum effect. She wouldn't lie around in baggy clothes pulling her own hair out.

This movie isn't all bad; at least half of the good parts aren't in the previews. Charlize Theron has a number of scenes where she perfectly captures the spirit of an entitled prom queen. Obviously Charlize Theron has shown she is an excellent actress in other projects. Overall, though, the movie drags.

I think screenwriter Diablo Cody is overrated. I didn't like Juno, which she also wrote. As far as Jennifer's Body, which she wrote as well, I couldn't even watch the previews.

If you want to watch a dark comedy about a woman who is leaving a trail of wreckage in her wake, I would recommend Election, or The Opposite of Sex, over this movie.

You might also check out The Seagull's Laughter, from Iceland. I have reviewed it here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281176/reviews-5

The Descendants (2011)

Overrated

[4/10 · 3 December 2011]

This is a slow, boring movie about a middle-aged man with a wife in a coma. I can't fathom the rave reviews.

I've spent a lot of time in Hawaii and know the types of people and places depicted here. I acknowledge that the filmmakers were far more sensitive and respectful of Hawaii than most. They tried hard to capture the true feeling of the place. The skipped a lot of disrespectful, lazy stuff that outsiders do when depicting Hawaii. That is to their credit. At the same time, the feeling isn't there. The movie often reads like an ad for high end real estate. There's something missing.

This movie has been compared to Sideways, another movie from the same director. That is also about a middle-aged man. To my mind, Sideways was a better movie, more lively, more humorous and with more to say about life and human nature.

If you want to see a recent movie that captures the feeling of Hawaii, Soul Surfer is one example. As far as books, I'd recommend, The Territory of Men by Joelle Fraser, and West of Then by Tara Bray Smith. The last is the true story of a family that used to own a plantation and what became of them.

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Don't Bother

[4/10 · 3 December 2011]

This movie depicts a very small slice of Marilyn's life. Unfortunately, it's not the most interesting slice by any means. Apparently Marilyn briefly befriended a crew member while working on the Prince & the Showgirl in England. He wrote a book about it on which this movie was based. While undoubtedly the most exciting thing that ever happened to him, it's more of an anecdote than a feature film. It's like we are examining the footprint of a Goddess for an hour and a half.

One of the things this film sheds light on is just how tiresome Marilyn's insecurities were to the people close to her. More than half the film's content is about this. Watching it was tiresome itself. Does the public really need to wallow in this 48 years after her death?

How well did Michelle Williams capture Marilyn? She wasn't bad. A pretty good version of Marilyn is still fascinating, but the luminosity, and the voluptuous carnality that Marilyn had isn't there. That was perhaps the greatest magic ever captured on film and it's not easy to replicate.

One of the hallmarks of a good artist is choice of subject material. Not everything is worthy of being made into a movie. This wasn't.

Somewhere (2010)

Ugh

[2/10 · 5 February 2011]

This is like a slower, more offensive version of Lost in Translation. I was hoping for something that I could enjoy, as a woman. No such luck. We spend a lot of time watching an unattractive, charisma free male mope in a hotel room. The first significant thing we see are the twin pole dancers dancing for him in his hotel room. This goes on for quite a while and makes a repeat appearance.

The story line is that that main character, played by Stephen Dorff, is a major movie star. Women throw themselves at him, things fall in his lap. He just has to sleep walk through it all. This actor just doesn't have the looks or presence of a movie star. It was supremely boring watching him mope, slouch, and brood. Director Sofia Coppola is not afraid to let the camera linger on him sitting on a sofa staring into a beer for five minutes. We get it, the guy is depressed. Fame gives undeserved benefits to random people. Life is subtle, it's full of little moments. That point has been made many times before and in better movies.

In the end there are few moments that are moving but it's not worth paying ten dollars and sitting through the rest of the movie.

Cairo Time (2009)

Worth Seeing If You Like Art Movies or Travelogues

[7/10 · 4 October 2010]

The storyline is not bad; a UN Official's wife is stranded alone in Cairo after her husband is called away. Being an attractive woman alone in an exotic setting gets to her. A friendship develops with one of her husband's friends which might turn into something more. Although the movie starts a little slowly, it picks up the pace later. It is one of those sensitive artsy movies, but it isn't in a coma. It's not clinically depressed. (If you've seen a lot of Focus film, you might have a concern about that.) The reviews are not inflated. The cinematography is good. The visuals are enjoyable. The main character stays in an elegant old hotel and floats around in lovely dresses.

The surprise was Cairo. The filmmaker shows us a city that looks like a magic dream. The characters also venture out to a luminous place called the White Desert. The Pyramids also appear. I thought they'd be a tourist trap, but the characters seem to have them to themselves.

I don't recall anything that would upset children or sensitive people. I don't recall nudity, sex or violence. There are some scenes where men follow the main character on the street and harass her. There are a lot of scenes where people smoke hookahs with tobacco in them.

Overall, I'd recommend this movie to people that like art movies or travelogues.

The Social Network (2010)

Overrated, But It Stays With You

[6/10 · 2 October 2010]

This film has been the subject of breathless reviews. The media response has been hot and heavy too. Is this an event movie? Is this going to change the way anyone looks at anything, or is it a Vanity Fair article that got made into a feature film? I don't think this movie really lives up to its publicity. For one thing, the cinematography is almost incompetent. Many scenes are poorly lit and murky. There's a cold, gritty washed out look to a lot of the footage. The soundtrack can be somewhat invasive. It sounds like an African tribe performing "Flight of the Bumblebees" while on tranquilizers. Although there's a lot of money at stake, the story is fairly simple: a maladjusted, insecure male does various things because of unresolved feelings, especially about women. He just happens to invent a social network that goes on to include half a billion people.

Although the movie has its good points, I suspect that the breathless response by the media is related to substantial ad revenues.

Jesse Eisenberg turns in a compelling performance as the founder of Facebook. There is also a wonderful scene where then President of Harvard Larry Summers is unbelievably arrogant and pompous. In it, he predicts that Facebook will never amount to anything, based on his opinion as a former Secretary of the Treasury. Most of the performances are good. I didn't really buy Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker. I've never seen Sean Parker, but he is supposed to be a hacker/programmer. Although he eventually started to date models, snort coke and hang out in nightclubs, I don't think that someone like Justin Timberlake has the type of presence that a hacker would have. Nerds and musicians definitely inhabit their bodies in different ways. I've never seen the character Justin was playing, so I could be wrong.

I wish the movie explained how Facebook came to be valued at 25 billion dollars. During the time period covered by movie, the company seems to have no revenue stream except for loans. For the most part, the unimaginable wealth Jesse Eisenberg's character is supposed to have attained is not depicted. Those seems like significant holes in the story.

If you were looking for some kind of vicarious joyride, this movie isn't that. It's more of a balanced look at the good and bad. The movie also contains a lot of misogyny and objectification of women, stemming from the characters' behavior. If this is popcorn movie for you, then I would consider these factors.

In spite of its flaws, I'm still thinking about the movie 24 hours after I saw it. This is a picture of what's wrong with our time: insecure, inadequate males who don't know how to deal with women. Their unresolved feelings can do wonders, or destroy lives--sometimes their own.

I'm Still Here (I) (2010)

I wish I could unsee this movie

[3/10 · 1 October 2010]

To say this movie is gritty is an understatement. I saw a lot of things I didn't want to see. Normally the dark side of fame has a fascination. Not there. This movie also has a fair amount of crude and misogynist content that I didn't need to encounter. It's either a documentary or a mockumentary. If even half of this stuff is true, Joachim Phoenix is one of the most messed up people on the planet, and again, it's not glamorous, just harrowing to watch.

Casey Affleck, who made this film, is actually a pretty good filmmaker. It's just that no matter how well put together, the content was just something that I didn't want to know about. It's not like I'm a prude either. I read tabloids, etc. Normally I enjoy seeing the messes some people make of their lives. Just not this one.

City Island (2009)

Not Good Enough

[4/10 · 17 May 2010]

Is this movie worth ten bucks? Is it worth driving to the theater and parking the car? Does it live up to the reviews quoted in the ad? No to all three.

The principle problem is the writing, followed by the directing and an unconvincing performance by an acclaimed actor. Some of the characters are hard to understand or like.

The movie is about an Italian American family living on a river island near New York City. They live together on a small house lot but supposedly know nothing about each other. That didn't seem likely. The father is a prison guard who secretly wants to be an actor. Even though the character was played by Andy Garcia, an acclaimed actor, this wasn't convincing they way it played out. It's hard to like this character when he spends a lot of time having an emotional affair with a ditsy actress whose behavior doesn't make sense.

Several leaden lines are repeated hypnotically through through the movie. The Andy Garcia says his character's name and that he is a "corrections officer" like it is supposed to be some kind of thing. Also something like, "every city needs and island, every person needs a place for quiet contemplation" keeps getting repeated. It doesn't have that much to do with this movie. Whoever wrote this isn't William Shakespeare.

One good thing about the movie was its setting, City Island. A former fishing village in the Bronx River, it looks like a New England fishing village surrounded by silver gray water and boats at anchor. Another bright spot is actor Steven Strait who played a long lost relative. He's handsome, charismatic, and a good actor.

Overall, I'd wait until this movie comes on TV so you can Tivo it and skip the bad parts.

Letters to Juliet (2010)

Weak

[2/10 · 14 May 2010]

The writing on this movie is so weak that I found it hard to pay attention. Even gorgeous shots of the Tuscan countryside, a beautiful young actress, and Vanessa Redgrave can't make this thing work. It has a few affecting moments, but they aren't worth it.

There were a few additional flaws that annoyed me further. Having worked in restaurants, I find the chef character to be completely unreal. I can't picture a chef feeding uncooked noodles to his fiancé. The main female character is a fact checker for the New Yorker. We first see her checking out the famous photo from the end of World War II where a sailor is kissing a woman on the street. She is finding out whether or not this event was staged by tracking down and questioning people who appeared in the photo. Having written for magazines, I found her having been assigned this task to be the statistical equivalent of finding the Hope Diamond in the gutter. Even though they meant to inject some excitement into a boring job this way, they also failed to do this.

The New Yorker agrees to publish her article about long lost lovers finding each other. They recognize that it is a good article. That's not what the New Yorker is famous for. They stopped having a masthead so people couldn't even address their queries to the right person. There was a famous incident where they threw away all the unsolicited submissions but cut off the stamps from the stamped self addressed envelopes for their own use. The sight of a sober, sane editor calmly assessing a good article and agreeing to publish it is something that seldom happens in publishing. To imagine what a real editor is like, inject irrational jealously, envy and cocaine addiction to the scene. (I've never written for the New Yorker, this is just a general impression of magazine editors.)

But I digress. In short, this movie is something you might check out on TV if you have nothing else to do. Vanessa Redgrave gave a good performance, and the actor who played her long lost love wasn't bad, but that doesn't make this movie worth seeing.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Worth seeing if you like this kind of movie

[7/10 · 1 July 2006]

The Devil Wears Prada is a good movie and worth seeing. There are things I wish they had done differently but the production values were very good, the picture was unusually sharp and clear, the soundtrack wasn't piercing, and it wasn't crude or misogynist. Adrian Grenier is in it. He has a supporting role but appears periodically throughout the movie. He plays the main character's loving, down to earth boyfriend. He has a three day growth of beard throughout and bushy eyebrows, but otherwise looks handsome. I'd say his acting ranges from very good to o.k.

The director is fascinated with Meryl Streep and her character; in fact it's a Meryl-centric production. I'm not as fascinated as he is; I would have liked to see more of Adrian and I don't think I'm alone. There were a lot of things that could have been done with regard to that. I mean, this is a chick flick. Instead this movie will go down in history as one of the most loving, detailed depictions of an aging ice queen ever made. The movie is almost trying to kiss Anna Wintour's and Vogue's but in a way. I didn't find that to be necessary.

There is plenty of fashion and many elegant settings. A lot of money was spent. The movie has also been very well promoted and supported, which is unusual for a "chick flick" these days. I'm glad of that. If the studios did a better job of catering to them, females and grown ups would come back to the theaters. I'm glad the people at this studio realize that. I look forward to seeing what they do next.

NOTE TO SENSITIVE PEOPLE AND PARENTS: There's nothing bad in this movie. It is rated PG-13 but it could even be rated PG or a G. There's less swearing than you will hear in line to get your tickets. There's no sex or nudity. You can tell some characters have had or will have sex but you really don't see anything of it at all. There's no violence. As I said earlier, the soundtrack was less noisy and obtrusive than usual and I'm thankful for that.

NOTE ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE MOVIES AND REAL LIFE: In this movie, and a lot of movies, there is a clear cut choice between doing something snotty and superficial and following a path with heart and integrity. A lot of teenage movies present this dilemma as well. My experience is that life hardly ever plays out that way.

I've written for magazines and am familiar with the publishing industry. First of all, to use this specific industry as an example, every day there are fewer publications to write for, of any type. The ones that remain are often getting eaten up by corporations and or having to downsize personnel, so even the idea of having a job at a publication is semi-mythical. Muckraking newspapers such as the one appearing in this movie are almost non-existent. People that work at alternative newspapers are often cranky, drug-addicted, and far from reasonable. Wages at such enterprises can be ridiculous and payment for freelance writers is often far less than minimum wage. Exploitation and mistreatment of writers is common at many publications, perhaps especially idealistic ones.

High fashion magazines have just as much to answer for. They cause anorexia and self-loathing in women, exploit hopeful young people, prostitute themselves to their advertisers, and recycle the same tired articles over and over again. For all that, your chance of ever getting a job at one of them is virtually non-existent.

Other industries have plenty of problems too. A business that espouses high ideals might have a bunch of maladjusted, difficult people running it and be a perfectly miserable place to work. Poverty sucks no matter how you slice it. You have a few years when you are young when it's o.k. but after that it grinds you down.

I'm not trying to tell anyone to lose their idealism, I just think that these movies collectively create a false picture of reality for young people. I can't tell you what to do, just don't go looking for the muckraking newspaper in this movie to apply for a job; it would have been shut down twenty years ago.

The Lake House (2006)

Snore

[3/10 · 17 June 2006]

Someone literally feel asleep and was snoring in the theater where I saw this movie. When the movie was over, the audience was like, that's it? That's all you've got?

I'm literary. I'm civilized. I'm a chick and I like "chick flicks" if they have any merit. I liked the premise of The Lake House, but the execution was anemic and dull. The story is that two people separated in time fall in love when a magic mailbox allows them to exchange letters. They occupy the same lake house two years apart. There's a subplot involving one character's father. He is supposed to be this grand old man who, surprise, doesn't know how to love. We've never seen that one before. He makes grand pronouncements that sound like a stupid person's idea of what a great artist would say.

That same dullness carries through the rest of the script. This is also the umpteenth movie to feature the city of Chicago and its architectural charms. That's getting old. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock don't have that much chemistry. I find Sandra Bullock irritating. She's not that attractive, but she is relentlessly perky and confident, and in a lot of movies, most of them bad. She's helped produce some of them, including Hope Floats, another bad movie. I wonder if she had something to do with this poorly-written movie getting made. There's just a time to say no to bad scripts and star vanity.

If you want to pass the time, this movie is not unpleasant. It's not offensive. There is some pretty scenery at the aforementioned Lake House and around Chi-town. Some will find the stars pleasant to look at. I don't recall any swearing, nudity, sex, or misogyny. It's just draggy and soporific. Unless you are desperate to get out of the house, this is a good one to check out when it comes on TV, IF you wish to do so.

I saw Sandra Bullock promoting this movie on David Letterman. She was engaging, told a good story, and carried herself with an appealing confidence. Is this how movies like this get made--someone makes an impressive personal appearance at meetings and then, bam, another poorly written script is foisted upon us? Does it matter that people don't want to sit through the resultant movie for ninety minutes? How about we look extra hard at the next proposed Sandra Bullock vehicle? Hope Floats, The Lake House, Miss Congeniality; there's got to be better material out there and other actors to consider. I was the intended audience for this movie, but I expected a lot more than I got.

I've noticed that an amazing number of people here have given this movie rave reviews. I find that suspicious. Supposedly 50.5% of the people who saw this movie gave it a 10 out of 10. No possible way. That vote is rigged. Not just me, but whole audience in the theater where I saw this found it soporific. I've also noticed that three out of four people managed to find this review "not useful." If you're here to promote the movie, I'm sure it isn't.

If you get rooked into seeing this movie, most theaters will give you your money back if you leave in the first part of it. Some will give you fifteen minutes and some thirty minutes into the actual movie, or stay and "love" this romantic snorefest.

Update: On June 19th 2006, Jay Leno mentioned "The Lake House" in his monologue and people in the audience spontaneously groaned and booed.

Nacho Libre (2006)

Not bad, but not as good as Napoleon Dynamite

[7/10 · 17 June 2006]

This movie isn't bad. The humor and timing aren't as dead on as Napolean Dynamite, which was also directed by Jared Hess. Nacho Libre is a simpler movie with a thinner plot. It's good that there is a movie out there without swearing and disrespect of women, but there are plenty of fart jokes and violence to fill that void. The violence wasn't as cartoon-like to me as it was to others; the wrestling matches aren't presented as faked. People get slammed and thrown across the ring, over and over. I found it to be a bit much. I would have preferred it if they had developed the portion of the movie outside the ring more.

Jack Black is very dynamic as Nacho Libre, the friar who wrestles at night to make money for an orphanage. I understand that he did most of his own stunts. Jack Black has an amazing confidence and intensity, especially for someone who doesn't have the physique that leading men usually do.

I found accusations of racism by some reviewers to be overwrought.

One thing that really bothered me was the sound level in the theater where I saw Nacho Libre. It was too loud. They tell us the studios set the sound level, so bad on you, studio. It turned a pretty good film into somewhat of a trial. Wonder why we don't go to the movies? That's why, among other reasons.

Harvard Man (2001)

You'll never look at the FBI the same way again

[3/10 · 15 June 2006]

The movie has an unintentionally ridiculous plot involving tri-sexual FBI agents, mobsters, a hot blonde philosophy professor, high stakes gambling, a natural disaster, and a cameo appearance by Al Franken. Interspersed with these things are characters tripping on drugs or philosophizing as college freshmen do, at great length.

Leading man Adrian Grenier has gotten handsomer since he made this movie; he grew into his looks. He did a good job acting, especially considering how young he appears to be here and the oddness of the material.

I was expecting the movie to be more offensive because the director has a reputation for doing unspeakable things to females in life, and given his other movies. This movie just appears to be a drug-fueled, delusional, freshman fantasy, but not as enjoyable as that sounds.

The fact that this director was given several movies to direct after this, each more offensive than the next, is disturbing.

Notes for the sensitive: The movie opens with footage from a sex scene and there are several more throughout. Plenty of drug usage too.

Some people have commented on the oddness of the colors in the movie but I just saw it on Showtime and found those to be normal, except for the brown river water in Boston. Maybe the colors were corrected or maybe there are colors only some people can see, like dog whistles.

The Seagull's Laughter (2001)

I'd recommend this movie

[8/10 · 16 May 2006]

This is a wonderful movie, set in the 1950's, about a beautiful woman who returns to Iceland after living in America. She reminds me a little of Scarlet O'Hara. She is a strong woman who takes no prisoners. The slinky dresses she brings back from the United States make quite a contrast with the dowdy woolen clothes that her relatives wear. Her beauty, glamor and willfulness wreak havoc on the population. The childlike delight which which she deploys her charms is wonderful to behold.

The movie is not in any way dull or dreary. It moves pretty quickly, has a droll sense of humor, and a knowingness about human nature.

If you are sensitive; there is one brief scene where something bad happens to an animal. The event is bad, but mostly takes place out of view. There are some sex scenes which are not extremely graphic, but do show female nudity.

I'd recommend this movie. As foreign or independent movies go, this is one of the better ones. Compared to the one or two other Icelandic movies that I have seen, this is the best by a wide margin.

Somersault (2004)

Don't believe the hype; this is a slow, mediocre movie

[3/10 · 14 May 2006]

Reviews of this movie are a definite case of Indie-Hype. It was certainly not "sexy and dreamy," as one reviewer claimed. This is another slow, gritty movie about the young floundering around trying to find themselves. You've seen other movies like this before. It was somewhat reminiscent of "Rain" and "In the Mood For Love," but thankfully, not as slow as those films. If those movies are in a coma, this one is just depressed. It is a modestly interesting movie if you can stand the slow pace of this foreign independent film. It would have helped immensely if the sound track had not been turned up too loud (which is was). Every time there was music or an intense scene, the sound was painfully loud. If it wasn't for that, and the false advertising, I would have had a more charitable view of this movie.

Set in Australia, "Somersault" is the story of a young girl who is promiscuous and out of control. Let loose in a among opportunistic, males, her experiences are not in any way, "dreamy." If this movie is an accurate picture of Australian males, then I am sorry for Australian females. The main character is pretty much used and discarded. There are some exceptions, but not that much. Although the writer/director is female, I didn't feel that the main female character was true to life. She doesn't suffer that much from her mistreatment. She seems to regard it with an unlikely impassivity. At other times she displays a boldness and seductiveness that would have been more likely in a woman twice her age. The portrayals of loutish males rings much more true to life, in fact, young women could study this movie to find out why they want to wait before having sex with someone.

Viewers are treated to various drab, dingy settings, even though the movie is set in a ski resort. Why is it that social democracies like England and Australia keep producing dingy, depressed movies? What is it about support for the arts, universal health care and free college tuition that makes people want to make movies like this? I'm not a fan of capitalism, but at least it cuts down on the number of somnolent, depressed, drab, dingy movies that a country creates. Something to think about. Momentum--it's not a bad thing. Try it. It won't kill you.

This movie is modestly interesting for those that can tolerate slow independent movies. Hopefully the theater where you see the movie will not turn up the sound as loud as it was when I saw it.

Electric Shadows (2004)

Don't Buy The Hype

[3/10 · 11 December 2005]

This movie, also called "Meng Ying Tong Nian," is a drama set in Communist China. It should not be confused with another movie called "Electric Shadows" which is a documentary about Hong Kong cinema.

Anyway, this movie was slow,depressing and dull. If anything good ever happened in Communist China, it never made its way onto a movie screen. If you've seen a lot of movies from Communist China, you've seen others like this. There's a child protagonist, dreary conditions, and a not quite poignant plot. Of course there are scattered acts of violence, repression and bullying. The boy-favoring ways of Chinese families rear their ugly heads.

Although advertised as being similar to "Cinema Paradiso," it isn't in the same league. It has that depressing Chinese movie feeling. The many clips of old Chinese movies shown in it are dreary and unlikable themselves. The landscape and buildings are mostly depressing.

In the end it picks up a little, but that doesn't redeem the movie. I consider myself to have been rooked into seeing this movie by the "Cinema Paradiso" comparison. The art movie theater in my town is empty most of the time. They need to stop lying to the customers. We'd come out to see the good art movies if we could tell which ones they were.

The Madam's Family: The Truth About the Canal Street Brothel (2004 TV Movie)

Excellent show

[10/10 · 6 September 2005]

This is an excellent show with great acting and production values. It is colorful. I thought (perhaps mistakenly) that it was a pilot for some kind of series and I was disappointed that it did not go on.

The show is set in New Orleans. It makes good use of its unique location; you get a totally different feeling from the usual Hollywood movie. Annabella Sciorra looks zaftig, and she wears her new curves well. I appreciated seeing a woman with actual curves and hips on screen portraying a sexy character.

The main plot line concerns generations of New Orleans women running a brothel out of their house. They run up against trouble and have to try to find their way out.

Hitch (I) (2005)

A mediocre romantic comedy with many tedious passages

[27 February 2005]

This is a corporate Will Smith vehicle. It is a mediocre romantic comedy with many tedious, trite passages. On the positive side, it is inoffensive; devoid of the toilet humor, violence, profanity, nudity, sex and misogyny that infest most modern movies. That means wide variety of people could see this, but if they have any taste, they will be bored and restless. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I was yawning. I was disgusted by the many recycled plot devices and bits of dialog. At times the movie seemed to be made from discarded pieces of "Jerry McGuire" and a bad Albert Brooks movie. There was actually a "poignant disclosure" scene where the Eva Mendes character tells how her sister "almost died" as a child when she fell into an icy river. (These scenes always involve bodies of water.) It's just that witless. I'm guessing that Will Smith ad libbed some of the dialog and had creative input. If so, he's the living embodiment of the Peter Principle. We need to keep a rein on out of control actors. Just because you look good and can stand up in front of a group of people doesn't mean that everything that comes out of your mouth is gold. To be fair, the writer and director of this movie really messed up too.

At this point I have to say that the opinion poll here was obviously rigged. There's no possible way that the largest number of viewers chose to give "Hitch" a ten. This movie isn't a ten, even to people that liked it. For them, it's a six, maybe a seven. I'm not buying those votes. Somebody at the studio rigged this poll.

We have to be thankful for one thing. Luckily Kate Hudson isn't working now, because if she was, this feeble romantic comedy would undoubtedly have starred her and we'd be seeing her modest gifts and plain face once again, as well as hearing about and viewing her each day of our lives, whether we liked it or not.

Remember, you can get your money back if you leave a movie in the first part of the movie. Some chains give you fifteen minutes and some half an hour (into the movie itself.) If you're wondering if the movie gets better after that; it doesn't.

In Good Company (2004)

This is a bad movie.

[3/10 · 29 January 2005]

This was a bad movie. The actions of the characters were incomprehensible. Why would a loving daughter date the guy who is pushing her father out of a job? Why are we supposed to be sympathetic to an ad salesman who makes crude, misogynist comments? Why are they using corporate buzzwords that are ten years out of date? The movie got real briefly in the last portion and woke everyone uo but it isn't worth sitting through the rest of the movie.

Dennis Quaid was able to transcend the material and give a good performance, although when he speaks to his daugther he often sound like he is speaking to a lover. Ick! He is very convincing as a scrappy, aging, ad salesman who's had about enough of the idiots who've taken over his company. Topher Grace looked much better in "That Seventies Show." than he does here. Someone cut off his hair, and it's not pretty. His performance is not bad, but he can't transcend this bad material. Few could.

This movie just sucks. Stay away from it.