clearsky111 Reviews

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

I don't know why...

[10/10 · 25 June 2006]

I don't know why I like this movie so much. There's no one thing that I can point to, but it's one of the few movies I can watch over and over again. Maybe it's the subdued performances of two very likable actors. Maybe it's because it's a combination of determinism (they're meant to be together) and free-will (he/she flies all over). Maybe it's the soundtrack -- And dialogue gems like these:

Jessica: I am telling them you're twelve so you can fly unaccompanied and the stewardess won't carry you around and stuff like that. Jonah Baldwin: Are you crazy! Who'd believe I'm twelve? Jessica: If it's in the computer, they believe anything.

But again, there are other movies with stronger acting (As Good As It Gets), better plot (too many to name), but some weird combo of above average qualities make this movie a 10. So here I am, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, watching it again, 13 years after the movie was made :).

War of the Worlds (2005)

Slow movie with Unbearably bratty kids

[4/10 · 6 July 2005]

I saw the trailer on Oprah, and it looked really good. Too bad I went to see the movie because the best parts were in that trailer.

To be fair, the movie begins well -- nice set up of the characters, interesting, suspenseful beginning. Then it gets old really, really fast.

What also caught me by surprise was how unbelievably bratty and maddening the kids were. If there were a theme to the movie, it would be that parents' love is unconditional. I would have left them in a hurry (and I don't feel bad about saying that -- someone wrote the characters with very little redeeming qualities except for the fact that they are someone's kids). The little girl is beautiful -- except when she's covered in ash -- then she looks ghostly and is eerily frightening, like she was taken out of a horror movie & misplaced in this one. She is a good actress, though, and when she let out her high pitched girlie scream (several times in the movie), I really wanted to commit physical violence -- and I'm known for my gentle nature, no joke. Same with her brother -- over-teen-aged kid who wants to "join the action" -- never mind that the action is a many-legged, bloodsucking space alien -- does he have a brain??? I wanted to leave several times during the movie; and I wanted to throttle the kid characters several more times. I only made it through because I was writing this blurb in my head. Thank goodness I went to the matinée and didn't pay full price. If you saw the trailer, you saw enough.

Little Black Book (2004)

Surprised after Low Expectations

[8/10 · 31 January 2005]

Monday night, nothing to do, so rented this movie -- I'd been avoiding it after seeing the previews/posters. I thought it was going to be low-brain-cell chick-flick awful. So I was pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful ending (ok, before the cheesy fainting scene).

The movie was incorrectly labeled as a romantic comedy -- nothing romantic about it; and nothing comedic about it either (unless it's renamed Little Black Comedy). But besides the false advertising, I thought the movie was thought-provoking and a bit of a social commentary. Not only does it point out how reality TV is barf-inducing, low, exploitative, and trashy, but I was struck more by the irony -- how Murphy's character is a control-freak of sorts, but her crusade to try to "make sure" that her boyfriend is not cheating on her turns the "control-tables" on her -- and she finally realizes that life's better lived then to be controlled, plotted, planned out -- (unlike reality TV). In that sense, the movie was presented more of a reality than any escapist chick flick.

Overall, better if you go into the movie with low expectations, and wait for the ending --