Change Your Image
artyyeo
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Napoleon (2023)
Under-developed
The battle scenes were typical of Ridley Scott and up to par. I enjoyed those very much.
The flow of moving from scene to scene was abrupt and has no continuity. Jarring is the right way to describe it.
Character development was pretty much under par. There was not enough time devoted to develop the characters. Sadly, the screenplay was weak and did little to support the character development. The character of Josephine could have been gloriously captivating; but, alas, it did not happen. For such a historic drama, character development could have been dramatic and absolutely captivating but Ridley missed the great opportunity.
I say again, the screenplay department seems to be asleep on the job. I cannot find a single phrase that was inspiring, compared to Gladiator. In other words, dialogs were mundane, and commonplace; nothing napoleonic in nature.
The sexual scenes were comical and stood out like a sore thumb. Was this a serious historic drama or a rough back-alley comedy. I cannot tell what's the goal of this movie. It made Napoleon and Josephine behaved like a pair of white mice in a pet shop copulating at just about any corners they can find. Needlessly so and I hope he was not trying to compensate for the lack of content.
Some say that a Director's Cut can redeem it. I doubt it. A Director's cut can improve things by, perhaps, fleshing out an already good movie. This movie has a failing grade and I do not think a Director's Cut can salvage it. When the movie is structurally weak, it cannot be redeemed.
Zhao shi gu er (2010)
Surprisingly good
The first 20min or so has a style which made the continuity rather poor; perhaps, the Director was trying to portray multiple threads of timelines progressing simultaneously but it gave me a highly fragmented feel.
Beyond that, the movie progressed sequentially in a single thread and was aptly performed. Wang Due Qi, as usual, is a highly skilled actor and his dialogs are superbly executed.
Enjoyed it quite a bit.
Ru yi zhuan (2018)
Best I've watched ... so far
This is the best Chinese TV series I have ever watched. Having squared that away, let's get into the meat proper.
Acting: The acting performance across the board is well above average and almost every single person has pretty decent acting abilities. There were no sore thumbs sticking out. Allow me to highlight: watch for the acting performance of:
- Vivian Wu (Empress Dowager) : she was able to project a distinctly Empress Dowager presence when she opens her mouth. Her diction and intonation were simply astonishing. You can literally sense the raw power emanating from her when she spoke. Bravo!
- Xun Zhou (Ruyi herself): Xun is a versatile actress as is shown in the many films she has acted in. Her versatility is displayed here in the wide spectrum of emotions she was able to depict here. She was also able to capture my heart to side with her along the way. Highly gifted actress.
- Chun Li (Imperial Noble Consort Ling): Although her pronunciation style accentuated her femininity, the clarity of her speech is stellar. I can hear her speak again and again. She has an unusual ability to make her words fall, not just on my ears, but also onto my heart. Quite a stunning acting skill.
- Janine Chun-Ning Chang (Noble Consort Hailan): Although she played a supporting role, literally supporting Ruyi all the way to the end, her ability to depict the range of personality from the quiet type (speak when spoken to) in the beginning to violating the palatial decorum for the sake of loyalty to Ruyi, is quite a stunning unfolding of the growth in her character. I have to kowtow to such acting.
- Huan Qi (RongPei, Ruyi's personal palace assistant and confidant): That scene on the palace walk when she was noticed by Ruyi for the first time and was asked to join her palace is one of the best acted scenes in the whole series. Her acting was so well done that at the end of that scene, I wished I have such a confidant in real life.
- Jie Dong (XiaoXian Empress - the 1st Empress): Her ability act to depict the character's need to keep suppressing herself to the point of implosion was masterfully expressed throughout the length of her character in the series. One of the most memorable scenes was on her death bed in Episode 39 (I think). Her ability to express the feelings of dissatisfaction (with the Emperor), the shock (of which I'll not tell here), the confusion and the deep anguish and disappointment were top-shelf performance. It made me empathize with her. Her ability to exhibit the regal submissiveness, quiet personality and softness simply melts the heart when she spoke.
Costume Design: if you can tell how much effort is put into the costume design, something is wrong with your eyes. Colors are stunning and majestic. Very attractive, indeed.
Screenplay: some phrases are common but there are others that are more exotic and ancient; perhaps, pulled out from ancient writings. Dialogs are limited to the confines of regal conversations but still very well crafted as the twists and turns unfold. The screenplay supported the many tensions in the series very well.
Songs: Ah ... the songs ... I was totally in love with the songs and I had to buy the entire soundtrack. They are specularly composed and provides a nice platform to accompany the series; especially, the theme song for the first 2/3 of the series that used big drums to signify the weightiness and severity of the throne in the Forbidden City.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Entertaining, intriguing but mental
The acting is impeccable. Daniel Day-Lewis is highly skilled in his trade and played the character richly. This drama is worth watching just simply due to the powerful acting alone.
The drift of the drama is nicely paced but in certain parts, the editing could have been done more optimally because I felt the momentum was lost during the extended scenes that were slower in pace.
The story line is quite disturbing and brings to mind of mentally and clinically ill characters. On the one hand, I enjoyed the story line but, on the other hand, the shocking characters and their behaviors took away some of the enjoyment of the story.
Sicario (2015)
Smooth intensity
If you need to take your mind away from something that is worrying you, watch this movie. You'd not have time to think about anything else. The intensity is very high and the editing is superbly done --- it's a smooth intensity.
If firearms is your forte, you'd also like the good variety of military small arms.
All in all, the entertainment factor is very high and the story nicely crafted.
Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
Fair
If I consider it just purely as a movie, it's above average but not the best from Ridley Scott. The dialogs were nothing to boast about compared to Gladiator. Cinematography and special effects are well above average. The story line is not inspiring; mainly, it is too human- centric.
With the couple of big stars (Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver), I felt quite bad for them actually, Their roles were minuscule and did not reflect the full potential of what they can say and do. They seem to be playing the role of light garnishing.
Here is the bulk of the review. Since this movie is derived from the Old Testament (OT) of the Bible and the Jewish Torah, the crux of the story is deeply religious and must be judged using the Scriptures as a reference.
As a believer, this movie depicted a zero (on a scale of 0 -10) for the fear of the LORD coming from a human. In this area, it was exceptionally disappointing to see how little Moses fear God as a major prophet in the OT. I do not know of any prophet in the Scriptures who did not fear the Living God. Moses' conversation with God (represented by a mean-spirited boy) was beyond redemption. I simply cannot picture a prophet yelling at his God; perhaps, this only happens in the 21st Century.
The depiction of God using a boy to represent Him is off-base. Yes, I understand that Ridley said he wanted the innocence of the boy to represent God's purity. But, the unfathomable Creator, the supremacy of the Almighty, was shrunk down to a little boy. In the conversations between Moses and God, the boy displayed an attitude that commanded no respect from a mortal. There was not a sense of pure holy judgment but more of a spoiled brat talking. This is approaching sacrilegious in dimensions. No where in the Scriptures was God ever depicted that way in those passages relating the story of Moses. I believe the Ten Commandment movie had a far more accurate depiction.
Not a single Scriptural quotation was uttered in this 2.5 hour long movie. If Ridley really wanted to make this movie to have more punch, some fair amount of authenticity must be adhered to. For example, the conversations just simply did not display majesty in all of the conversations between Moses and God; unfortunately, even when the Pharaoh was talking. There is a large element of authenticity missing.
The conversation between Moses' newly wedded wife and him on their first night together is human-centric again. In fact, what she asked of him were heresies even for her Bedouin tribes who were believers of the same Abrahamic God.
The accuracy of the story was far and wide inaccurate. In particular, the identity of Moses as a Hebrew was muddled beyond belief. Also, Moses being washed away by the collapsing waves was again unscriptural. Same with Pharaoh.
The reasoning behind the 10 plagues were straight out from the humanistic National Geographic documentary. I sense Ridley's internal struggle as an atheist attempting to make a biblical movie. Because of this struggle, the movie of this scope has lost much of the authentic punch yet again.
What is also missing was the notion of Sin. The OT is filled to the brim about this idea and many of the disciplinary actions executed by God were tightly-coupled to the sins committed by the people. The worshiping of the Golden Calf was a 1 second scene and nothing else was talked about it. In short, the notion of what is right and wrong was not touched.
====================================================================
To Hollywood directors who intend to make future biblical movies ====================================================================
Lastly, I hope that if there are more Hollywood directors and producers who intend to make more biblical movies in the future, please do more research into the Scriptures: 1) Understand the relationships between the humans and their God of the Scriptures 2) What is the single most important focus of the God in the Bible? 3) Scriptural quotations and authenticity mean a lot to believers 4) Right and Wrong, sin and righteousness are almost always black & white in the Scriptures. Evading from this subject matter or blurring things will make the foundation of your movie collapse to the ground. 5) Try experiencing God yourself before trying to depict His Words in movie will give your movies that much more influence on the viewers. Trust me, it will be displayed in your movies.
Noah (2014)
Not worth it: even if you consider it only as a fantasy movie
Acting: The acting was quite bad. Lots of unnecessary pauses. Besides Russell Crowe, the rest of the actors and actresses felt out of place. Even Russell's acting was not his best.
Screenplay: The dialogs were poorly put together. I am not inspired by any single line.
Biblical accuracies: There are gross inaccuracies in the movie. They are not minor inaccuracies but they are so large that it will make you cringe on your seat: a) the number of humans in the ark is wrong b) who was in the ark is also wrong c) new humans were born in the ark is wrong d) Noah killed people in this movie is wrong. e) The Watchers, who were never mentioned in the Bible, played a critical role in building the ark. For a while, I thought I was watching a Transformer movie. f) Noah ran around like a mad-man trying to kill 2 infants in the ark is utter rubbish. g) Methusaleh was depicted as a sorcerer. h) 2 out of 3 of Noah's sons were depicted as rebels. i) One of Noah's sons, Shem, was depicted as a person who goes into woods to pet with his girlfriend: a sexual theme that is currently accepted as the norm in our society.
Irreverence for God: a) No sacrificial offering on the altar was made by Noah to worship God when they left the ark. b) God did not renew His covenant with Noah and his sons when they left the ark. c) A very indistinct and half-hearted rainbow was presented at the end before the movie wrapped up. It was so indistinct, it could easily be mistaken for a lens flare against the sun. In fact, it was presented as a lens flare against the sun and then it morphed into a faint rainbow. With the CGI that was used throughout the movie, I thought a clear colorful rainbow could have be added into a scene but I guess the director/producer may have thought that a Biblical rainbow may offend a certain community that uses the rainbow for their cause.
Post-modernism in full swing: a) Towards the end, Noah's daughter-in-law preached to him that his decision to love instead of obeying God sets the new direction for this new world. In other words, it was men's rule and will that started off with the post-flood world. Men-centricity was to be worshipped all over again. b) Noah's wife rebelled against him when they were in the ark. It was never recorded in the Bible that she was such a person. But, 21st century feminism was pushed to the foreground and used to wake up the one-track minded Noah to think about his family besides his God.
Conclusion: Focus on the Family's PluggedIn.com website gave us one redeeming reason for watching the movie: they said that it may provide a talking point between Christians and unbelievers. I think we should save the money and the time. Every single one of my family felt violated spiritually and emotionally disturbed throughout the movie. It is not worth the time, the money and the torture. There was zero spiritual inspiration but overwhelming disgust dominated all of us when we left the theater.
One Night with the King (2006)
More budget is not always better
We've watched both this version of the Esther as well as (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168331/?ref_=rvi_tt).
Here's my take ...
This version of the Esther certainly reveals a larger budget. It has great CGI effects and the costumes are more beautiful. Even the palace interior designs were better looking. Everywhere you look, the physical part of the movie was adorned with eye-popping glamor and beauty. I would rank this category a 7-8 out of 10.
But, when one watches a biblically based story, one is looking for authenticity, historical accuracy and heart-felt conviction. Besides the introduction which linked the hatred of Haman's people to King Saul wiping out their people in the book of 1 Samuel, the rest of the movie moved too much away from the biblical story. So, what kind of inaccuracies am I talking about?
Towards the end, the queen was supposed to invite the king to two banquets before she revealed the petition. It was collapsed into one. The real Esther never had a boy-friend but this Hollywood movie added its own into the story to sensationalize.
Next, Mordecai was supposed to be wailing and crying in the streets when he found out that his people will be annihilated. Wailing was emphasized in the Bible to indict deep and extreme emotional outcry. This emotional content was very subdued and skimped over.
Also, the part about Esther telling Mordecai to instruct the people of Israel to pray and fast for 3 days and nights was again lightly skimped over. This is where it needs to be emphasized and emotions poured on it with versus quoted and praying depicted. But, I saw none of those in this movie.
With a star-studded cast such as Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif and John Rys-Davies, if the story content were presented in a more accurate manner, it would have been a success. The stars did their acting well and so did Tiffiny DuPont. The rest were average in their acting.
In short, I was pretty disappointed with this movie for the lack of inspiring spiritual contents.
Esther (1999)
Accurate and inspiring
The accuracy of the movie is pretty high. Even the dialog has quoted large chunks of the Bible and in many parts, they have attempted to extract and paraphrased many verses. It is quite biblical. I am inspired.
Here are the parts which are most inspiring:
1) Mordecai wailing in the streets, crying and praying. It depicted a man without any inhibition when it comes to expressing his emotions to God. It was recorded in the Bible and the movie depicted it accurately.
2) The emphasis on the 3 days and nights fasting with praying was clearly depicted and was again very inspiring. Many verses from other parts of the Old Testament were quoted in their prayers. It relates fasting with a national catastrophe.
3) In the end, the wooing of the king by Esther was again accurately presented. Through her gutsy courage to appear before the court uninvited and throwing the two banquets for the king and Haman, the final climax was accurately depicted again.
The movie, in short, was done to inspire and uplift the viewer spiritually. Well done and God bless!
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
Worst day to die hard
I have watched all of Bruce Willis' Die Hard movies, some of them I have watched several times.
The current one seemed to have lost quite a bit of touch with the style that made the Die Hard series a class of its own. To me, I think this one has knocked it out of place so much, I am not sure if it will ever recover from it.
The editing is one of the poorest I have ever seen across all the movies I have watched. If I were to rate the editing, I'd give it a failing grade. There are multiple scenes in there that were completely out of place and they made the actors looked like they didn't know what they were doing. The car chase scene was absolutely too long in the beginning. I fail to see what good it brought to the movie for being so extended. Sound editing were too raw and after a while, I was looking for when it was going to end. Too much loud noises were slapped into the movie in a rampant manner and not intelligently placed. After the first 25 min, I was getting tired of it. It was not even interesting anymore. I'd say this is fine example of what you'd call the unrestrained use of technologies.
I thought the dialogs were a little clever in the past but this one was way under par. They were poorly put together and reflected very little skills. The so-called lighter moments were ineffective and poorly developed due mainly to the failing dialogs. Failing grade again in this department.
For a while, I thought Bruce Willis was done with being a foul-mouth craze but looks like it is back and roaring back in a big way. The level of vulgarity sounds 1980's. I did not think it was needed to make this movie good, just as much as the last Die Hard was well done without this much vulgarity.
Acting skills and the role that Jai Courtney played was coarsely developed. He seemed and felt unnatural and awkward. I was not at all impressed by this character, let alone entertained.
In short, this movie is one of those where the preview trailer is 10X better than the actual movie. Pretty let down by this movie.
2016: Obama's America (2012)
Revelation
I like the journalistic style and the narration, it appealed to me because it quietens the heart and spoke at a personal level.
The facts are well presented and each exploration of the presented facts substantiated the original statements. Logical and very satisfying intellectually.
The contents are in some ways shocking to me and it causes me to think about what the mainstream media has been blocking from the world.
If you are planning to vote this Nov, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie. At the least, you will get to see some of the details that you will never see from the mainstream media and will help you to *know* him better.
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Not impressed
Close Quarter Battle (CQB): The CQB scenes were too short and few, considering this is a Bourne movie. Camera panned too much and too many unfocused frames. Lots of lots of flickering but not much contents. I'd rank this category a 5 out of 10.
Jeremy Renner: He is fine actor with lots of potential in the hands of an experienced director, like Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan or Daniel Espinosa. I feel for him in this movie, it has barely scraped the surface in terms of utilizing Jeremy's skill-set. Jeremy is very intense and directors need to exploit that. Jeremy is better than Matt Damon for playing this kind of role. It's clear cut. Matt is better for roles with much longer dialogs. And, Jeremy wields his guns significantly more realistic than Matt.
Cinematography: The motor-cycle chase is over-extended and did not contribute much to the movie. After a while, it became just noise and lots of flickering unfocused frames yet again. The visual effects is not effective.
Script: The yelling done by Rachel Weisz at her house was too excessive and again, did not serve much purpose. Some significant editing should be done in this area.
Comparisons: In comparison to other similar movies, such as Body of Lies and Safe House, this movie has not achieved its mark. I'd put the failure fully on the shoulders of the director.
Safe House (2012)
Superbly executed
Thrilling: CQB scenes are very well captured and realistic. Sound editing is well timed and close to perfection. Camera's sweeping angle is fast but did not cause motion sickness. The noise at the stadium maintained a very high level of tension.
Plot: I know this is an action movie but it is an action movie with a decent plot.
Acting: The acting did displayed quite a bit of skill. Denzel was the more skillful one, of course. The supporting actors and actress who were playing the roles of CIA managers were somewhat undistinguished and pretty hackneyed in their character development.
Comparison with other similar movies: I would put this movie on par with Body of Lies and significantly better than Bourne Legacy (2012).