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Pteromysvolans
Reviews
The Italian Job (2003)
shiny package, empty inside
The content: fast cars, helicopters, pretty women, evil villains, gold and riches, a robber gang with its super plot and specialists. But the movie plot and also the typical dialogue between the people has no interesting content whatsoever, it is meant to be "cool" but you've seen it all a million times in other better movies already. In other words: this is modern Hollywood movie art at its most typical.
Artistic innovation? The people making these kind of movies probably don't even know what artistic innovation means. They probably just laugh all the way to the bank when armies of idiots go buy their endless and brainless variations of a typifal commercial actions flick.
The action? It is speedy, endless and rather OK, but the major impression you get might not be entertainment but a dejavu feeling: hey, I must have seen this before somewhere...
Like everyone knows there are 13 movies of this sort in a dozen. Once you've seen a couple of them, you've actually seen all of them. Besides, the plot of this movie is hardly a mediocre one. If you really want to see a movie of this genre, why not give some of the other 13 movies of the dozen a try?
Holy Smoke (1999)
Very good subject but the movie lacks depth
The interesting and important themes dealt with make this movie well worth watching.
First you think that it will be a simple educational movie about cult addiction and recovery - but then the plot starts to get complicated. Maybe even a bit too complicated, because the end part of the movie feels rather artificial.
The story tells about very important and even universal things: meaning of life, feelings of emptiness, relationships of leaders and their pupils, human nature, need of love. But though those themes are thought provoking, the movie itself lacks a lot as a movie. I cannot help thinking that someone could have made this into a much better movie (shouldn't be the fault of the makers though, many of them have had good artistic achievements).
The persons lack enough depth. The truly complicated nature of people is not - after all - portraited realistically enough in this movie. Because of that you never start to take the movie seriously enough despite the many dead serious themes dealt with.
Very difficult movie to rate. In purely artistic sense, the movie: acting, directing, filming etc. is worth maybe 6/10, but because of the important thought provoking subject, I give it a much better 8/10.
Mùa hè chieu thang dung (2000)
An enchanting film
This movie reminds me very much of the plays of Anton Chekhov. I.e. it is completely against the traditional aesthetics of American style movies where action, fantasy, humor, over-acting, special effects and the goal of getting as much dollars and viewers as possible are usually the main message there is... So, no wonder that some of the reviewers of this movie here, don't seem to have got at all what this movie is about...
Nothing special happens in the movie, but in the end you feel that you've seen something worth seeing, and even learned something new about human life and social relations.
The acting is good and realistic. The life stories told are nothing but happenings of ordinary life, but the director makes them into beautiful lyric poems that touch your heart.
The beautiful scenery shown alone makes this film worth watching. 9-10/10
The Godfather (1972)
Godfather, the best movie of all times? Gimme a break...
Godfather the best movie of all times, and the only movie worth a 9/10, and Godfather 2 the third best movie?? Come on..., the Godfather series has its moments and especially the first one is not a bad movie at all. But, IMHO, almost all the other major movies about Mafia (especially "Goodfellas" & "Once Upon a Time in America") are, more interesting and better art too than the bombastic Godfather series. I find even Brando's acting in these movies below his normal standards.
And let me tell you why many people like these mafia movies so much: it's just because many people secretly in their heart admire and envy the "wild & free" life style of the gangsters. Just the same reason why Bonnie & Clyde etc. are so popular. Or youngsters love to read the Nicky Cruz biography "Run, baby, run" because they find the violent & brutal life of the young gangsters exciting and fascinating, blindly ignoring the fact that the author's message is totally against that. Sadly, it is often the same with movies. You think Quentin Tarantino is so popular among the masses because of his artistic merits? You think wrong.
Psycho (1960)
Best horror movie of all times??
Sorry, but I've never understood why "Psycho" is considered by so many people to be the best horror movie of all times (I give it only 7/10). Very influental it is, yes. Maybe also I've just seen a bit too many dozens of mass murderer movies based more or less on "Psycho", that the original doesn't feel so special anymore?
I think that a good movie must stand time and can be watched many times over and over again. Why should one want to watch "Psycho" again? The plot is so easy to guess even when seeing the movie first time that I find there not too much excitement.
What's the plot and idea of this movie? Some nut just goes killing innocent people, because he's crazy, and that's the whole story. Period. Scary? Well, as much as irrational violence is scary.
I also find it disgusting that in many horror movies psychotic people are often portrayed as the cause of all evil, when most of them are only very sick and mostly not particularly harmful to anyone. What is really scary - in real life or on a film - are people basically having everything ok and a good mental health, but still often doing horrible things, including irrelevant violence. Most violence in the world is done by such "normal" people.
I think that Hitchcock has many better movies than "Psycho". For example "Rear Window" is a true classic in its minimalism, though maybe not particularly scary, at least in the way modern horror movies playing mainly on special effects are. Anyway, there you have just an ordinary guy, could be your nextdoor neighbour, who cruelly kills his wife etc., Now that's a scary idea, and the plot makes you think too.