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joseg3192
Reviews
Tom yum goong (2005)
Bad
This is a bad movie. Throughout the whole movie I kept cringing at every time there was a cut in a scene, for some reason the cuts look so jarringly bad. Probably because the scenes are so poorly written or because the director doesn't know how to shoot anything except for fight sequences and even that he manages to mess up, but I'll get to that later.
On top of that Tony Jaa, or any of the actors for that matter, has no screen presence, every single one of his acting scenes comes off as awkwardly reading lines. To add to the suffering none of the lines have any depth, they're all saying what they're expected to say and saying exactly what they feel. The only time that we are relieved of this painful experience is when the fight sequences save the movie from being a complete disaster.
The fight sequences in this movie, like in many other more modern martial arts films, seem to be more Americanized and have become very quick and brutal action. What I mean by that is that they still employ the martial arts aspect or style, but the fights are becoming more and more like fight sequences in the Rocky franchise, where the opponents punch each other like punching bags until one gives out. This is a change in modern martial arts films that I am not liking, I liked the older films because it was almost like a game of chess. In the older movies the fights were a series of exchanges between the fighters, usually lasting in punch, block, counter, punch, etc. and then finally one of the fighters lands a blow. It seems more skillful that way and even more suspenseful, both fighters seem to be evenly matched, they are thinking and out thinking the opponent, countering then countering some more until one of them slips and bang, the fighter took advantage of the slip up. It's almost like a war, where every exchange between the opponents is a battle, the fight is very undecided and very back and forth until the hero hopefully defeats his opponent, thus winning the war. These newer martial arts films seem to be more like a game of checkers, bang bang bang, very little set up and a lot of action. Part of the mysticism of the martial arts genre is how the fighters keep calm under a fight and don't break out of their stance and just start brawling, that probably has to do with the fact that martial arts is a discipline, this aspect seems to carry over to the genre and make the fights look like a dance (something pretty). That's not to say that there aren't one sided ass kickings in the older films, but that's only to imply dominance or mastery of martial arts. The point I'm trying to make is that none of the fight sequences here are pretty, from a visual, or choreographed point of view, they seem like a Transformers fight sequence but with people.
Another thing I disliked in this film was how some of the cuts were made during a fight sequence. I remember one where Tony Jaa does a flip to kick the opponent and the camera cuts to a different angle where Jaa is in mid air then lands the kick. I'm here thinking "why did he cut?" and it's because Jaa couldn't land that kick for safety reason, so they cut to one where he did land it. Now I don't have a problem with taking safety measures but if a cut is going to take me out of the action sequence like that then find another way to film it or don't do that particular kick if it's too elaborate or complicated. You've already wowed most of your audience with some of the other stuff in the fight, you're doing too much at that point, take it out and find something else, something more creative.
Anyhow, the story in this film is pretty weak. There's a MacGuffin elephant, Jaa has to save it, and puts him on course for all the action. Nonetheless, this has it's fan base, people looking for punches and kicks to the face and all other areas, but this just isn't for me, as a martial arts fan or as someone looking for story.
Warrior (2011)
Good.
When I first saw this in theaters I was trying to hold back my tears, mainly because I went to see this with guy friends and didn't want to look like a wimp. I couldn't believe how touched I was by this film and that it was creating this reaction from me. Upon second viewing, I reevaluated the film and must say that it is a good movie but not as great or moving as the first time I saw it.
The movie has two protagonists (both brother), each with their justification for entering a MMA tournament and each with personal demons caused by their father. The movie has enough character depth to slip some of the clichés past us, as we're no longer trying to nitpick at the logic of the movie but we're looking for personal triumph of the characters.
The only thing that annoyed me was the almost claustrophobic style in which the film was shot. Too many close ups and too much shallow depth of field for my personal taste. I was waiting for the directer to do something gutsy and film a conversation in just a long shot or something. Still I guess that the shooting style compliments the writing and genre, it adds a layer of grittiness or underdog mentality that is a part of the sports drama genre. It also adds a little weight to the demons that the characters carry around through the film. It also had that annoying wobbly camera style that is so synonymous with reality TV shows and unfortunately becoming more common in film. It wanted to add a layer of realism or something but just the close up style would of sufficed.
Still this is a good film if you're a fan of underdog sports dramas. It puts a little twist to a very common story, all fans could ask for, to bring something new to a genre.
A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Exceptional family drama.
A Raisin in the Sun is a wonderful movie about a poor black family trying to achieve the American dream. The odd thing, probably something that speaks to the heart of African American audiences, is that this family has been in the country for six generations and still doesn't have anything to show for it because of racism in the country. The movie is full of deep well made characters, each with internal conflicts, who are all having conflicts with each other. The movie is essentially about politics within a family household, who is the leader and has the power, and who gets to decide what is best for the family. Each of the characters seem to have their own personal agenda and there is conflict between the characters that exist outside of the squabble for the $10,000. The film manages depicts the many avenues that the family members (and African Americans in that era) are trying to explore to escape poverty to achieve a better future.
This film taught me something new, every time a different character enters a scene a new scene begins. The scene takes on a different tone and adds a new conflict to drive the scene without changing the setting or time, it's done just by introducing a different character through the door.
Ultimately the film was wonderful but I felt some of the end scenes dragged on a little too long and kept me waiting too long for the final resolution. The last scenes leading up to Walter's final decision weren't filled with tension or conflict like the previous scenes, it was literally them just waiting and sobbing, something that could of been cut down. Still this is a great film that is a must see for any up and coming screen writer, I highly recommend it.
Sin nombre (2009)
Wonderful surprise
When I first put this on, I had no idea what to expect, I thought it was going to be another film about humble hardworking immigrants and their struggle to cross to the U.S., but I was completely surprised by what I saw. It follows a gang member as he tries to get a girl across the border, as his last selfless act now that he is a marked man by his former gang for breaking their code. What I loved was some of the homages to the Western genre, the hero has a shady past and despite the fact that he has two names, neither are valid in society or as a gang member(hence the title Sin Nombre), he's making a run for the border (ironically he's heading north to civilization to escape his past), and a girl is complicating his goals. The only complain I have is about the romance growing between the two main characters, I felt it wasn't well developed, but the girl was very naive and is young in the ways of love so I forgave her for it. The ending left me a bit polarized, a part of me wanted the hero to live, bury his past and live happily but I understood that a man like himself will never find peace or be able to lead a normal life. That is why in many westerns the hero walks off into the sunset, he can't offer anything to civilization so he has to move on to another outlaw city, in this one the hero can't offer anything to neither civilization nor his "home boys" and so he is killed with at least one redeeming act. The only thing I wish was that the hero took his death head on, where he didn't run and all he said was "you got me", taking his death with pride; but his running was to buy the girl some time to get across not to save himself, he knows he's doomed.
I loved the way it was shot, and at one point I exclaimed during mid viewing "my god, this has to be the most dangerous film ever made" because of all the shots of people riding on the train. It felt really genuine and there was no CGI to take me out of scene. The only thing I wish was that the director would of added a POV shot during the hero's death scene, looking on to the girl across the river and dying happily as his mission is complete, but maybe it was too obvious or clichéd. Anyhow, I"m looking forward to more films by Cary Fukunaga, he looks like a very promising director and I wish him the best.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Not the best, but my favorite of the trilogy.
There are people I talk to that think that Nolan is his own worse enemy? Not in a bad way, he just sets expectations so high because every single film he puts out there delivers. He's put himself in a spot where people want him to fail or think that because the film didn't get a perfect score with the critics that Nolan has lost his touch. Well he hasn't, and let me say that I was blown away by the film. A couple of my friends said their expectations were met but that they needed more, that their expectations had to be exceeded. This is probably the best compliment you could ever give anyone, saying "you're too good, you could do better".
In this film, the hero is stripped of EVERYTHING he has by the diabolical Bane and left to die in hell on Earth. I've never seen a hero that has been through so much pain and been destroyed to the level that Batman was in this film. But every great hero has to to rise to the challenge, and that's exactly what Batman does by saving the city that is at odds with him. At the end of the film there is so much at stake for our hero when his plan to save the city are spoiled. There are many spectacular action sequences that aren't clustered with CGI or over saturated with things flying in the screen, but keep you in the edge of your seat because of the wonderful character arcs and set ups that you love.
That being said, there are still so many levels of conflict going on in this film that is not just Bane and Batman fighting it out. There's Bruce Wayne's internal conflicts, his conflict with some of his allies, conflicts within the police force, even conflict within the villains. Nolan gives everyone a conflict and Batman's absence for a long period of time makes you start thinking to yourself that this is no longer just a comic book/action adventure movie. The betrayals, twists and turns throughout the movie add a layer of crime thriller or film noir. You are almost surprised at how the movie takes its time and how much liberty Nolan gets in telling this story.
On top of that, some of the plot points of the film pay homage to classic Batman graphic novels. There are little details here and there that will make some of the fan-boys shout out in excitement because they clearly understand the reference.
At the end of the film, you are left wanting more great Batman adventures from the wonderful craftsman that is Christopher Nolan. Especially with the last little twist at the end, you start begging "give me another two hours of film", or may be even think "what if Nolan has another Batman film up his sleeve that he hasn't told anyone about". The only negative thing I'll say is that you need to be prepared to tune your ear to what Bane has to say, some of it is important plot detail that my friends and I had to put together almost like a puzzle. This is not the best Batman film of the trilogy, that title still belongs to TDK, but this is easily my favorite. For some people, it may not be the same "wow" that they got from TDK, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a film that grows on you the more you watch it.
Tell (2012)
I don't give out 8s, 9s or 10s that easy.
Before I go into my review I want to say that I completely understand what the film is about. It's about a guy who in the heat of the moment kills his girlfriend by "accident" and as a result his conscience is making him lose his grip on reality.
My problem with the movie has to do a lot with the opening scene. The film starts off in a very confusing manner. A couple is arguing, and it's the girl who's asking the guy what his frustration is about. So we understand that he's frustrated with their relationship, yet he won't say what exactly his frustration stems from. The girl is frustrated at the guy because he doesn't spend time with her, a point to which the guy has no real response to. At first I thought maybe he's cheating on her, but that can't be because he too is frustrated with their relationship. A cheater will usually try to keep cool and not raise any suspicions or try to sabotage one relationship because it could ruin the other.
So the whole time I'm thinking, what is so secretive that he can't tell her? He can't be a professional assassin because it becomes very apparent he can't deal with the pressure of murdering someone. So what is so secretive that he can't tell her "I'm upset about this", like a real couple would do? What is so secretive that it leads to a massive argument that leads in someone's death. If arguing has been a reoccurring problem like it's suggested, why not break up at this point? The reason this is done in such an illogical fashion, is that if the argument is settled like adults, the movie has no lift off and thus the murder doesn't happen.
The clunky delivery of the lines by the actors makes it very apparent that the actors themselves don't know what their characters are fighting about and neither did the writer. The actors don't know of any argument between a couple in which the problem is not put out there, and so they are having a hard time getting into it or understanding the material. And if it is put out there then the audience would not find it a plausible reason to kill her, for this reason it is left a mystery. To the writer this was just a small detail to push the story along and get to the "good stuff". To top it all off the director tries to cover his tracks and tries to bring some seriousness to this flawed scene by filming it in "this is how you know the scene is serious" shot (a.k.a. the close up shot) and also by doing the reality TV hand-held style to make it seem as if this argument is real. Come on Ryan have some guts, do something unexpected, film it on a flat extreme long shot or something I haven't seen.
Starting a film with two characters we know nothing about arguing tells us nothing except that they are frustrated. Setting up the scene as something as simple as "I know you're cheating on me" would of sufficed, but this wouldn't lead to a murder it would lead to a break up. In fact, no normal couple argument would ever lead to a murder. The only way it can happen, is if you introduce the male character before the argument as a mentally unstable and frustrated with life character. Maybe he's taken a beating at work, maybe he has no friends, he was released from a mental institution not too far back, he wants to claim a life insurance after her death (a classic), etc. or a combination of multiple things. If the main character is someone who balls up his emotions, and has been building up this anger at his girlfriend or at life for this really long time then show us that. Show us the evolution from someone calm, into an unhappy boyfriend, and then a violently explosive person. This is what I mean by character depth, we know nothing else about these characters except that they are fighting. I have a feeling that this is what Ryan was going for but I shouldn't have to go from hypothetical to hypothetical to arrive at a plausible solution. If you wanted to make a psychological thriller about a man's guilty conscience a little easier, make it about the guy who hits a stranger while driving. Set up as a nice guy with bad luck.
I'm sorry I just couldn't get over the issues of the first 5 minutes. On top of that all the actresses were bad in this film, and perhaps miscast because they all look like 20 year old models (except the officer), the lead actually looks the part of a psycho in his late 30s. In fact he is the best thing to happen to this film, his performance takes over the film after that clunky mess in the beginning and gives life to the film. The film lacked plot points though, it did well in representing the main character's internal conflict but I saw the officer coming in and being killed.
The movie could of used more gore as well, kind of like Japanese films (I thought the girl's face should of been smashed in or something). Overall the movie was okay. A good score to go along and a good representation of a man losing his grip on reality. I felt some of the shots were conventional or expected for a thriller. The film needed normal shots, shots of before the murder occurs to get the full fear effects when he commits the murder.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
I wanted to like this movie.
This review will definitely contain spoilers. I have been a big Spider- man fan for as long as I can remember. You can only imagine what it was like for me as a 10 year old kid to watch Spider-man on the big screen. To me the movie was perfect, and now as a 20 year old I get to watch a reboot to one of my favorite comic book heroes.
This reboot of the comic book hero is awfully flawed to me. Now maybe it's because I've gotten really picky with the movies that I watch these days, and maybe that "high" from watching the Sam Rami Spider-man has carried over all these years and hasn't allowed me to watch the movie with a truly analytic lens; but I think that the movie has no real characters, only cut out posters for human characters. Firstly, the romance between Peter and Gwen is not well developed, I felt that their romance consisted of mostly sarcastic conversations and of awkward moments. They never had a true human to human moment, like in the Sam Rami, the romance mostly consisted between Spider-man and Mary Jane but Peter was trying to build the relationship with Mary Jane. Peter was funny, but he gave her advice, he comforts her when she feels insecure, and pours his heart out for her. In the reboot, Gwen and Peter meet for what appears to be two days or something, Peter gets bitten and becomes sort of mysterious, then in a Twilight like fashion Gwen falls head over heels for him because he is dark and mysterious and all of a sudden she's at a lost of words when she speaks to him. And then Peter tells this girl, who he's just gotten to know, that he is Spider-man.
The other thing I want to tackle is why he becomes Spider-man. So we all know the origins, that Peter uses his powers irresponsibly which causes his uncle's death, which leads him to wise up about using his powers to stop criminals. This movie has an extra layer which is his parents death/disappearance, which has really weighed on Peter's mind throughout his life. Then his uncle dies, he's angry for a while but discovers he has spider powers and goes to look for the killer (for about 10 minutes of screen time) in a subplot that is never fully resolved. Come on, I would of thought that the death of his uncle would of had a deep psychological impact on him, that he would have nightmares, or he would be angry because he is the direct cause of his uncle's death, some sort of internal conflict, something. But no, the movie forgets that subplot or that Peter is a human being and goes into the main conflict which is the battle with the lizard.
The whole Peter's parents subplot is another thing not fully resolved. The post credit scene felt like a really cheap way of solving the plot by prolonging it, it's as if the director saw a rough cut and said "I forgot about Peter's parents" then at the last second called in Rhys Ifans to do a 2 minute scene to cover his tracks. I've never scene a post credit scene (which has become synonymous with all marvel movies) where they attempt to solve a problem that could of been solved in the movie, they're usually there just to hint at where the sequel will be heading.
Another thing that irritated me was how Peter discovers his powers. It's done in a montage style that feels like it belongs in a music video not in a movie. It's him sort of experimenting with his skateboard in a warehouse or dock. In the Sam Rami version, there was a real revelation to it, a little bit of tension that went with each step he took towards discovering his new found abilities. In this one, they just throw the powers at us, no suspense, nothing, just cool skateboard tricks, him dunking a basketball and comically breaking everything because he's become super strong.
There are a lot of mishaps in logic which I won't get into in this review, it's really small things that sort of forget how the real world works. But these four things were the biggest problems, I could go deeper but I don't want to extend this already long rant. All of that being said, my 10 and 11 year old brothers as well as my 9 and 10 year old cousins really enjoyed the movie. They couldn't stop talking about it, so did the other kids around the theaters. I explained my issues with the movie to them, but they seemed to have no real response to it. My uncle (he's in his late 20s) came along and didn't enjoy the movie and we both concluded that the movie was for kids. So as a kids movie, it succeeds, but as a movie for adults you might be mixed. Again I wanted to like this movie but it failed to deliver.
Video Game High School (2012)
Average
May contain spoilers. This show has the quality look of a Hollywood movie. It's well lit, there's nice camera movement, shot composition, excellent special effects and CGI, etc., everything that is needed to tell a story through moving images. It doesn't have the look of a student film or under budgeted independent film, the creators really know how to work with digital technology that is becoming more and more available for ambitious filmmakers.
What it doesn't have is a great story. I feel that I've seen this before in other movies (unfortunately made for TV Disney movies), the loser teen who is bullied in school but will eventually overcome everything and get the girl at the end. I already see it coming, he's going to win some big tournament or defeat the bully character or a combination of both or something. What I'm wondering is why the bully character is such a jerk? He doesn't have anything better to do? It's antagonists like this that make me not care about the hero's journey, there's no purpose to their behavior. I mean, the excuse for this is that the hero got lucky and defeated the bully in a video game. Really? That's the antagonists purpose, to prove that his defeat was a fluke? In a video game? Can't the bully character and hero just have a talk like adults, or the bully confront the hero in a non duchy way and ask for a rematch? I recently started watching TVshows and have just come to realize that the writing and overall quality of TV far exceeds film. They create characters that the audience lives with for 10 years or so, their journeys are unpredictable from season to season, and each episode has a unique story. They are fresh, original, and throw out formulas that seem to plague the film industry. Unfortunately this is a show that seems to be following the formula of a feature length film.
The whole idea of a video game high school is something that not even my 10 year old brother would buy, and he plays video games. It's a cute idea though, and I can't help but feel that the creators had fun coming up with this. I can't help but feel that, there's good chemistry between the actors and the people behind the camera which is why it gets as good a score as it does.
Bite Me (2010)
Skip this, very forgettable.
I won't go too deep into this but this is a terrible show. For no second do I buy the premise that (spoiler alert) only video game players are capable of killing zombies because they take advice from video games and that (spoiler alert) at the end of season 2 the military takes orders from a bunch of misfits. I mean, come on, this is the real world and that just insults the intelligence of any human being. I also don't buy the romance that develops between Shawna and Jeff or the friendship that develops between Derrick and the rest of the group. Another thing that I found annoying was that the episodes were only 10 minutes give or take, this makes the story for each episode very forgettable and rushed.
I've seen shows on the internet that are very good but don't succeed because of the limited budget or limited exposure. This is a show that isn't good but has good exposure on Machinima, which targets mainly the video game crowd. Ultimately this show is cheesy, and I still don't understand if it's trying to embrace its "cheesiness" or take itself seriously. If it embraced its "cheesiness" I have a feeling I would be more entertained, but how do you make something cheesy in a zombie apocalypse which clearly touches upon the theme of life and death and survival?