Reviews

There are so many good things about this movie I don't know where to begin. Story, acting, dialog, human interaction, humor and a writer/director with a flair for colorful characters.

I think I saw this movie for the first time as a recommendation for similar movies to Tremors. I was looking for a fun comedy horror and I thought I'd check this out. I did not imagine I'd enjoy it as much as i did especially since it's soooo gross. The alien species in this movie is especially disgusting, and I am talking here about alien Grant and the slimy slugs and why not Brenda the womb. But the reaction of the humans to all these forms of grossness is just priceless. The mayor (the excellent Gregg Henry), the chief Nathan Fillion (the personified everyday man in an exceptional situation doing his best) and Elizabeth Banks all create endearing characters and have believable, and yet very funny reactions. Gregg Henry and Michael Rooker's characters are memorable with their idiosyncrasies. The mayor explaining how you get Lyme disease, or the look on his face when he sees alien Grant for the first time or when he says that he watches animal planet all the f-ing time..it cracked me up. Or Grant's defining phrases: sugarplum, hey killer, his whole demeanor in the first phases of the change really create the character.

Strange as it may sound, this movie opened other cinematic paths for me. I wanted to see more of Nathan Fillion and so I saw the excellent Firefly. I also saw the hilarious PG Porn by the same director and it's very exciting that Guardians of the Galaxy movies are also in James Gunn's hands. I like the way he brings the characters to life, they have quirkiness but also warmth and kindness about them, even when they don't do or say the nicest things.

It's nice when you unexpectedly come across a warm, unpretentious movie, where characters are human, not biped plot necessities.

I'm not fond of sports movies, but I am fond of characters-finding-themselves movies, and this is exactly what I found here. Yes, it's quite bloody and violent but underneath the violence there is friendship and caring, and a sense of real thoughtful people trying their best. It might seem a contradiction in terms (violence vs caring and thoughtfulness) but see the movie and you'll understand.

The movie is filled with engaging supporting characters and good performances. To me Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Liev Schreiber and Kim Coates stood out.

The only other movie where I've seen and liked Seann William Scott was the Rundown. I thought he was charismatic punk then, but now I saw him as a human being, it was a quiet but quite deep performance. He made a sympathetic goon. I really felt for him in the "I'm stupid, he's gay" scene. For the record, I don't think he was stupid, just extremely shy and socially awkward, who internalized only too well his parents' labeling of him. He needed just the right environment to bloom, regardless of whether he had to imprint it with his blood and fists.

I viewed this film in terms of contrasts and duality and yin and yang balance.

It's a beautiful film, and a beautiful love story between two people separated by so many worldly obstacles and united by otherworldly passion. She was young, he was old(er); she was delicate and suave; he was rough and blunt; she was poor and free, he was wealthy and married; she wore a mask and hid a secret; he offered his true self and never bothered to hide anything about him or his job; she ultimately offered love beyond refute, he offered death.

In a game of such contrasts and tensions, can anyone remain sane and able to define who they are? I took the famous erotic scenes as an unrestrained, uncensored, insanely deep and engulfing form of catharsis - a relief from all strains that they felt, unspoken and unconfessed. Even the physical entanglements in the sexual positions were to me highly suggestive of the forceful clash between the yin and the yang of their world, where the drop of black goes into the white half and the drop of white in the black one and boundaries can no longer be established. In their sexual intercourse, we see both hate and love, pain and pleasure, aggressiveness and tenderness, hell and paradise.

I feel this is an emotionally draining film. To me it was never boring or slow paced, like some said. Maybe I found it so captivating because it always focused on the main character and Wei Tang worked her magic to perfection. The singing scene in the Japanese house, for instance..I have no idea what she was singing about, but it was breathtaking and heartbreaking.

It was made 38 years ago, before I was born and yet I felt I could immediately relate to its themes.

First we have, as a character put it, "man raping nature" with the progressive industrialization of the wild areas. We have (urban) people trying to rediscover a sense of purity and nobility within nature and away from the increasingly urban confinement. Then there's people living at the outskirts of civilization, in misery and poverty, like animals in human form, with basic emotions and instincts. One of these basic instincts is that the stranger is the enemy. Any manifestation of kindness and familiarity vanishes the next second as if it was never there. And we see the terrifying spectacle of all those emotions we dread: fear, pain, humiliation, uncertainty, guilt. Oh, yes, all this still feels so real.

The actors' and non-actors' performances, the actions, the situations are realistic and believable, it's like the whole thing actually just happened.

The message is dark and grim. The title should have been "(There is no) Deliverance". I want to believe in a sense of humanity and friendship and universal justice. This film has the guts not to provide that. Although my soft nature requires of a film deliverance a la "Shawshank Redemption" I feel equally impacted by it.

and frustrated and bewildered....and yet, all these (negative) feelings, and I feel hollow after watching this. We have a donkey upon whom all pains are inflicted by cruel, ruthless people and when no pain is inflicted, when he gets a compassionate touch, we learn that this compassionate hand does not feed him at all. What depresses me the most is that there is no fight in these characters, there is no strive for being better human beings, more loving, tolerant, forgiving. Gerard's mother is warning him not to get together with Marie, she's buying expensive, showy gifts for him to keep him put? Is she so blind as to how Gerard really is? Are we so blind, so stupid and so senseless when it comes to people and animals around us? Am I as blind and loveless as these characters? Am I so angry with this film because I think it forces upon me only one answer to these questions ?

I waited that long to see this movie because of the bad reviews I read. However, I thought I'd check out some other titles with Charlize Theron so decided to watch this.

I had no idea it would be so funny (the fallen out of grace superhero), so original (the focus is not on the dynamics of the good and evil,-there's no comic-book type villain- but on coming to terms with who you are) and even philosophical (free will is stronger than fate and determinism for both human and superhuman beings).

The leading trio has great chemistry and they work with a pretty good script. It might have been a bit better without some of the repetitive dialog, but I don't want to nitpick.

All in all, a good surprise.

I suppose everyone in love with Jane Austen imagined herself as a Jane Austen heroine, in Regency England. From this 'wishful thinking' standpoint "Lost in Austen" is a very appealing idea, as we get to see this modern girl who gets to be some kind of a Jane Austen character. The good art direction, the appropriate costumes and beautiful scenery make for a good immersion in Jane Austen's world but unfortunately this immersion stops here as some characters are complete opposite to what Jane Austen intended and sometimes so unfaithfully altered that I found myself thinking this must be a parody of Jane Austen's world. But if this is a parody and if the message is: people should not live in fictional worlds, in love with fictional characters because this is as shallow and unfulfilling as the characters and story are, then why do we get that ending? So I can say I was dissatisfied with the characters and plot, but still I recommend it to every Austen fan because the idea is beautiful and for some, this might just be enough.

I haven't read the Batman comics. For me, Batman began with Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale. So I'm not sure how certain characters (the Joker, Harvey Dent) were supposed to be as taken from the comics. I only know what I saw, and boy did it blow me away! A clown has to be the saddest, most depressive being on earth and Heath takes that and brings it to another level.

The clown gloom turned now into pure evil. He lost any shred of identity and achieved the perfect freedom. I loved all the different scenes where he mockingly explained how he got his scars. He probably had a million stories. I loved the boundless sick satisfaction when he told Batman he had nothing on him. Some people commit suicide when they reach this level of freedom of mind. The Joker commits chaos and tries to bring chaos to people governed by rules and humanity. The ultimate challenge is Batman and probably his main excuse for still being alive.

I don't recently recall being in awe of an character as I as was of the Joker. Certainly, Dr. Lecter and Hans Gruber have their share of evil but they were also charming, charismatic and had their own reasons for living, which made them a bit more humane. The Joker doesn't have such "redeeming" qualities. He doesn't have a purpose, or the pleasure or the pain derived from achieving or failing to achieve it. In his own words, he just does things.

The movie itself is solid, but the voice-over at the end is too explicit and hurts the movie's perfection. In my opinion Batman Begins doesn't have such a clear flaw, but nevertheless I liked the Dark Knight better. The acting is top notch all around.

The reason I'm not giving it 10 out of 10 stars is the script. It is occasionally contrived and other times a bit cheesy (and not even Sean Penn can save one scene :"I am sorry, I am sorry...The last one was from me").

That out of the way, I liked the movie a lot, because of its central theme (international politics of peace and murder), its pace and nicely built tension (the bus scene was so well made, from start to finish), its message and last but not least because of its characters and their interaction.

Keller and Silvia are two people devastated by loss, be it an accident or political murder or genocide. How they deal with it, with the feelings of revenge or on the contrary, with feelings of long-sought serenity and forgiveness, the way they communicate their sorrow, through words or silence, the way they almost embrace each other's convictions make for a very special relationship between the two of them, a relationship so deep and powerful as to transcend physical chemistry although it's obvious that's there too. As for Silvia alone, Nicole Kidman renders her so believable. When she asks Keller to stop shouting as she cannot think in all that noise we sense how vulnerable she feels from all the brutality in her life, we sense she's a woman on the edge, and that's how people on the edge can sound like.

The quote from the African leader's book is so beautiful and painful at the same time, as it's now just hollow words for the people who can do something about it. The quote works in itself, but also casts some light on the plot, in retrospect. It's so beautiful, that I can't help putting it here: "THE GUNFIRE AROUND us makes it hard to hear. But the human voice is different from other sounds. It can be heard over noises that bury everything else. Even when it's not shouting. Even when it's just a whisper. Even the lowest whisper can be heard - -over armies... when it's telling the truth."

Having watched Chung King Express after I saw In the Mood for Love I realized the director-lead pair has a feel for characters with an deeply sensitive side.

In Chung King Express we see characters that long for touch, love, communication, but whose own tendency of over-thinking their life makes them incapable to take action or unable to make a constructive decision. The fast pace of their existence, the volatility of the objects of their affection make them focus their need for stability onto the things around them. They invest the objects with a meaning and soul, in a need to keep their minds alive until something better comes along. The pineapple cans and a whole apartment will be good and understanding companions for their misery. The way they cling on little things to feel alive again is touching, funny and sad at the same time.

The story (one of them if not both) is optimistic though, Tony Leung's character finds in himself the smarts to shake off the drowsiness about him and reach out to the immediate, real people near him. It took him a while for his somnolence to 'expire'.

Although I'm not a big fan of time travel movies because they twist your brain so much and you still cannot come up with a decent logical answer, I liked `Twelve Monkeys' as a time travel movie and otherwise.

There is one feeling I particularly get from time traveling stories. It's the way the characters are organically and cosmically connected to each other, there is a sense of universal order when two people meet each other and the feeling of past/ future familiarity forms inside them. This is what happens with James Cole and dr. Railly. They know somehow they are bound to each other, but they just have to let things happen to get to know HOW they are connected. The courses of their lives are governed by the implacable flow or leaps of time, which already set into place the events for them.

I also enjoyed the discourse of social insanity, delivered in a funny and witty manner by Brad Pitt's lunatic character. Although his ideas are not new (not wanting to be a consumer labels you as a crazy person, or if others decide you are insane, you accept it and become insane or the fact that the ‘real' crazy people are outside institutions) they are still sensible and captivating.

Overall, Twelve Monkeys is not the most original film I have ever seen, but it's pleasant, active, has a natural feeling about it so that you can empathize and communicate with the characters. Quite nice.

Having watched the movie, I had this very defined and accurate sensation of how tough and strong normal people are, as to survive the constant aggression of the day-by-day life. If we were less than tough and strong we would end up shooting and beating people up like Michael Douglas' character in this movie. From the very start we realize it is something wrong with him, by the way he perceives the details, people's faces in the traffic jam, the heavy heat, or by the way he carries a conversation when he decides to leave the car in the middle of the road and go home on foot. There begins a journey with all the signs of a tragic end. Each new incident adds a little to his discomposure, and every time he refuses to ignore the absurdity of the situations, as a ‘normal' person would do. But it's only a matter of time before he crosses the line and reaches the point of ‘no return'. It is the point where someone loses their equilibrium, their sense of reason and stability and no one can help them. Society, in the form of local police reacts by trying to hunt him and stop him. Nothing left to do. The big events in Bill's life that formed his character already happened. We only witness one day in his life, the fatal day that was bound to happen, when everything goes wrong. The efficient filming and directing of the one-day story make possible the understanding of a lifetime. It seems to be one of the directors' strengths to choose a dense one-unit story (taking place one day like in `Falling Down' or in one particular spot like in `Phone Booth') and make something suspenseful and even meaningful out of it.

It is not the story of the movie that makes it remarkable, although the story too has its significance. It takes place during Qin dynasty, when the emperor's desire to expand and centralize the neighboring states under one unique power gained him a few determined enemies, among the people he conquered. The confrontation emperor vs. emperor's assassins ultimately raises a few issues to consider: the obvious and not so obvious meanings of war, death, revenge. The strength of the movie lies in the visual means of telling the story. Images, settings, colors (there is a dominating type of color for each important sequence), characters' appearances and moves, they are all perfectly selected to suggest the different moods and attitudes involved. The music is also effective. It all gave me the impression I was watching a ballet dance, or an absorbing painting, or reading a forcefully suggestive poem, or all these altogether.

Othello's story is moved nowadays when prejudices, racisms and all kinds of discriminations are constantly fought. The modern 'Othello' has two guidelines or two focuses: (1) racism and (2)sexual love.

(1)On the one hand Othello proves a rational, humanistic and open attitude against discrimination, (2) on the other hand he questions the 'purity' of his woman, even her purity before her marrying him. It seems a little bit strange that a man that fights prejudices finds hard to accept that his wife had a life before him (although she didn't have much of life, as we find out) and cannot find the wisdom in him to give her the benefit of the doubt.

But we know that Othello must kill Desdemona and a large part of the film focuses on Othello's obsession for her (Desdemona aka Dessie). There needs to be built the kind of love and sexual jealousy that leads to murder. And it is believable, but only if we take it out of the context and we ignore the status of this modern Othello. But if we take into consideration the forward-thinking context of today's story and the leading position of Othello in this context...well, I raise at least one eyebrow looking at Othello's actions.

There are a few interesting things in setting up the plot of the movie: we see enough of the bad signs to understand and to expect something very mysterious and very revealing about what another experience of the Bermuda Triangle is. We see the characters, we witness all the signs that foresee something 'bad' is going to happen (the dreams, the adventurous leader of the trip, the fact that he's bringing his girlfriend along, the interest one of them has for the paranormal experience of the Bermuda Triangle). It's all well until becomes to obvious and the stereotypes prevail (the voodoo ritual they stumble across, the picture taken of the ritual and the people disappearing from it), there is no gradual suspense and almost nothing remarkable happens to the characters that could not happen in the real life). Dreams, visions and greed have been know to happen. It's true, you don't find a '39 missing ship everyday, but the extraordinary discovery does nothing to raise the interest of the story.