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Reviews
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Lives Up to the Second
I think the Terminator series is one of the greats in film history, which led me to be concerned that this one would be the Rocky 5 of the group--take away all credibility it had won over the previous dozen years, made possible by great action with equal quality story.
At first, I was concerned that this wound tank-an hour solid of only action. But a decent story did flesh out, and I was surprised and happy with the result.
The highest praise I could give this movie going in was that it lived up to the second. As my summary notes, it clearly did.
Higher Learning (1995)
Bad like Boston Public and Saved by the Bell are bad
I thought this movie was ridiculous. I really think this is to college what Boston Public and Saved by the Bell are to high school--that is, anyone who sees this before they get to college thinks college is actually like this.
Now, I understand that Singleton wanted to turn this movie into a microcosm of colleges in general, but for all this stuff to happen at one school in one week I find a hard pill to swallow. Some of the stuff does happen on a disturbingly regular basis (ie, drunken rapes), but the rest of it is so rare that putting it in the movie is useless, other than to provide filler.
Sorry to all you high schoolers who see this movie, but college is NOTHING LIKE THIS.
Fight Club (1999)
Brilliant, Visually Compelling, but Falls Apart
This film deserves all the accolades it has received in the past. It is a brilliant idea, and the cast was great. Ed Norton hasn't made a bad movie that I can think of, and Brad Pitt is equally phenominal. Just the whole idea of an underground club like the Stonecutters of Simpsons lore I thought was cool. I also (SPOILER!) thought the two people as one was potentially a fantastic plot twist.
(SPOILER pt 2). The end, though, left a lot to be desired. The first four fifths of the movie had my disbelief suspended very well, but then the shooting-myself-(in the head, no less)-to-kill-my-alter-ego bit was rediculous. The whole movie fell apart at that moment.
See it, though, because its greatness heavily outweighs its poor ending structure.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
For 1991, Miles ahead of its time in action & story
In 1991, t2 set the bar so high in the realm of action/adventure movies that it still remains to this day one of the great action movies of all time. As time as passed, special effects have become more integrated into the action genre, as, frankly, they have always been. And they have become quite outstanding. But few of them today suspend disbelief as well as T2 continues to do. Movies like Matrix and the James Bond movies have great sequences, but I cannot compare them even marginally to the chase sequence in this film between the helicopter and police cargo van (look at the T1000 on one of the close-ups during this sequence, because he actually has 3 hands!!!). And the hydrogen bomb sequence blows my mind every time I see it.
I have seen this film no less than two dozen times, most recently on our new surround sound system. I notice something new than astonishes me.
This movie is near the top of a short list that makes up the greatest all time movies I have ever seen.
JFK (1991)
This film is a wholly inaccurate portrayal of the truth
For the real story of the JFK assassination, read the book "Case Closed" by Gerald Postner. Mr. Postner directly discredits every "conspiracy" that this movie (read-Oliver Stone) claims to be the "truth."
The real truth is the Garrison was a strong-armed zealot who threatened people to get testimonies he wanted, not the real ones. He also molded the facts to fit his bizarre and wholly incorrect theory as to what really happened, versus using the facts to mold hypotheses.
Cinematically, this is not a bad movie. The visuals were pretty good. However, the lies that this film perpetrates far outweigh its look.