It's a beautiful film but the story is lacking and you end up stranded between conventional film and the arthouse feeling entertained but far from enlightened or enriched.
rrees
wrote about Shutter Island (6)
An excellent story given a competent execution. The wartime flashbacks seem a bit superfluous given that the rest of the story is about memory. Otherwise a good thriller of rising tension.
rrees
wrote about Defiance (5)
An interesting story that mixes some interesting historical detail with a more typical Hollywood war film.
rrees
wrote about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (8)
A beautiful merging of images, music and performance with a conventional thriller plot.
rrees
wrote about The Other Guys (5)
Reminded me a lot of a gross-out humour version of Hot Fuzz. It is part parody and part homage to American cop films. It the improvised lines that had me shaking with laughter but the framework for this adlibbing is less interesting. Great supporting performance from Michael Keaton.
rrees
rated The Other Guys
rrees
wrote about Kingdom of Heaven (5)
Often beautiful but equally as often nonsense.
rrees
wrote about Moneyball (8)
Good central performances and the script is engaging, even as a non-baseball fan. There is a nice blending of archive and movie footage but the skeleton of the movie is formulaic with the usual three acts, hero and his opponents and the careful year labels on each flashback, just in case you might be confused by any deviation from linearity. It is a good film but a little more inventiveness could have made it great.
A great cast and a funny screenplay are brought to action-comedy perfection by Branner's direction which credits its audience with some intelligence.
rrees
wrote about Fish Tank (8)
Brims with menace, frustrated ambitions and violence. Hard to watch, yet to vivid and real to really dismiss.
rrees
wrote about Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (6)
Guy Ritchie has finally found a genre in the mock Victorian Sherlock Holmes adventure that enables him to exercise his ticks and little obsessions. Gypsies? Fiddles? Gambling? Fist fights? No problem! In fact he shouldn't make any other kind of movie from now on. An excellent turn by Jared Harris as Moriarty brings some genuine sinister menace. Law and Downey Jr. build on their screen sympathy to create an enjoyable action flick that you don't want to think too deeply about.
rrees
rated Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
and
2 others
rrees
wrote about The skin I live in
Almodovar makes a b-movie! The plot is pretty ludicrous and quite gruesome (not one for anyone with medical phobias) but all the standard Almodovar themes are here and it looks fantastic.
Lost in Translation meets The French Connecttion
rrees
wrote about Goodbye Lenin!
In many ways the perfect comedy, blending together the personal, the political, the intimate and the public.