Real Movie Review-Movie Reviews, Movie Quotes, Movie Trivia

I generally avoid movies that are getting as much buzz as this one. This is the movie they made with no money on a camcorder, I am sure you have heard of it. They have made like a zillion dollars now, no television trailers, let the viral rumble push it forward. Very intriguing and mysterious..I had to go, they got me, I should have known better.

This movie looks and feels like a documentary, sort of. It follows the main characters, a young couple Katie and Micah who are being bothered by an unseen entity that seems to have been following the female lead Katie around her whole life. The mocumentary takes place over 20+ days as they set up a video recording device to attempt to capture some of this “paranormal activity” on video and find out what is the cause of all of these frightening occurances.

Every ten years or so someone makes a movie with no budget and no studio that absolutely catches fire. By no budget, I am not talking about a 2 million dollar “low budget” indy. I am talking about a couple of people maxing out their credit cards to create their masterpiece. Clerks, The Blair Witch Project and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all immediately spring to mind. This movie definitely fall into this category. I know I am going to get hate mail for saying this but here it is, unlike the movies mentioned in the last sentence which were all very original, this movie completely stole the formula from Blair Witch. They have had 10 years to figure out how to stylize it so it looks smoother and they have better equipment, but it is a complete rip off. This movie has the luxury of the current, Saw VI, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean audience of lemmings who seem to be impressed with anything to push it forward. Lucky for them or they would never get those credit cards paid off.

Director: Richard LaGravenese

Starring: Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon, Harry Connick Jr., Kathy Bates, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Writer/director Richard LaGravenese (Freedom Writers) takes Cecelia Ahern’s novel and re-teams with Hilary Swank to make a formula film that should come with a warning for diabetics and people on sugar-reduced diets. It is overly sentimental (thus, making it on par with the genre) and has unconvincing characters, a few good lines and average performances to create a completely forgettable film.

P.S. I Love You starts with the seemingly mismatched couple of uptight Holly (Hilary Swank, still sporting her Million Dollar Baby abs) and charismatic and saintly Gerry (Gerard Butler from 300) having an argument. After we are shown how perfect he is, we flash to the scene of his wake. Holly is crushed and lapses into a shell, hiding from her friends, Denise and Sharon (Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon) and mother (Kathy Bates) until she gets a letter from her deceased loved one. We watch flashbacks of their relationship as Gerry guides Holly back into an even improved life with lots of ‘awwww’ moments and a few laughs.

P.S. I Love You is the kind of movie that raises the performance expectations for us poor real world guys by creating irritatingly perfect male characters. Women love these motion pictures. Comparative films bring The Notebook and all it’s clones to mind. For guys, there are a few funny lines and lots of scenes of Hilary Swank looking good.

Director: Jon Turtletaub

Starring: John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duval,

Some rare motion pictures have the power to fill us with a sense of wonder and cause us to speculate on the possibilities, beyond what we think we know. Phenomenon is one of these scarce films, though not everyone seemed to see this aspect of the picture, as it made its way to becoming a favorite of many and ignored by many more. The acting is strong and the characters are appealing and authentic, but the real star here is screenwriter Gerald Di Pego’s wonderful story.

John Travolta is Gearoge Malley, a simple, small town mechanic who is trying to figure out how rabbits are eating his garden, and how to win the heart of the beautiful maker of ugly chairs named Lacey (Kyra Sedgwick). His entire life changes when he sees a bright light that knocks him from his feet, and stuns all those who know him, when people notice that he is becoming smarter, and smarter, but that’s not all that’s changed about George Malley. But how has he changed and where is it all going?

Phenomenon is a similar story to that of the 1968 feature, Charly (based on the novel, Flowers For Algernon) and is a delightful film that will make you wonder about the possibilities of human abilities. This is wrapped up in a wonderful story with characters that you will quickly grow to care about.

Director: Guillermo DelTorro

Starring: Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, Doug Jones, Alex Angula

This is a relentlessly dark, but wonderful fairy tale, as well as an example of truly fine filmmaking as evidenced by its three academy awards in this area. The story is very good and the actors are all excellent. I see few foreign language films and recommend fewer still, but this is one gets my highest rating. Even if you usually don’t care for foreign language features, this one is worth a look.

The movie is set in Fascist Spain in 1944 and Ivana Baquero is a young girl named Ofelia who travels with her mother (Ariadna Gil) to join her new husband (Lopez) at a mountain army camp where he is the evil Captain of a unit chasing rebels. Once there Ofelia soon finds herself in contact with strange, mysterious beings, including the Faun, who claims that she is a long lost princess of a subterranean world, but can he be trusted?

So often we forget that quality movies are not found only on our side of the pond. This is a dark, beautiful story and an old-fashioned fairy tale in the traditional of the original Grimm’s stories. Unless you are fluent in Spanish, you will need the subtitles. This is a pain in the ass, I know, but this one is worth it.

Starring: Karl Urban, Russell Means, Moon Bloodgood, Clancy Brown, Ralf Moeller

Director: Marcus Nispel

Well, cover your ears, kiddies, because I am ready to blow. I can sum up this movie in one word. Awful. Unless you are an action junkie and I mean a real ‘story?- we don’t need no stinking story’ kind of action junkie, stay away from this one and I mean far away. The stench probably reaches into the theatre next to it.
The threadbare plot of this script, which seems like it was pulled from the bottom of a Writers’ Guild clearance bin involves a Viking boy being left behind on the shores of North America, where he is taken into an Aboriginal tribe. When the Vikings arrive again 12 years later with no apparent purpose other than to try to kill all the Aboriginal Peoples that they can, no one but the white man is capable of fighting back in any way. Luckily, he is some kind of Special Forces Sword Master dude, so the Vikings are in trouble.
Where should I start? The history of the story is ridiculous and it is offensive to the Vikings (bloodthirsty brutes somewhere between a prison gang and Klingons) and to the Aboriginal Peoples who are portrayed as being all but helpless in the face of the big, bad, white folk. No, the poor helpless First Nations folk can only run and hope that their only white guy can fight a guerilla war for them, in their own land. How did these poor people survive for millenniums with no white people at all to help? Puhleeze. There is only the flimsiest plot, no character development (that is generally what makes characters interesting) and what little dialogue there is, is about as inspired as a bag of chips.
There is plenty of action, some of slightly innovative and a visual style of muted colors, rather like 300, but the director here did not know when to apply it and when to pull back. It’s not enough. Some hardcore action fans may like it, but to all others; I took the hit for you on this one. I saw it; now you don’t have to.

Starring: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Chris Cooper

Director: Roland Emmerich

An excellent film that has Mel Gibson as a peaceful farmer who wants nothing more than to raise crops and children, but when a cruel foreign army rips this world apart, he has no choice but hoist his giant sword and…. Wait. What? That’s Braveheart? Oops. The Patriot? Never heard of it. Oh wait, now I remember.
Okay, change the sword to a musket and I don’t have to re-write that first paragraph…well, except for the excellent part. Its pretty clear that Gibson took his Braveheart formula, poured it into an American mold, slapped a new picture on the cover and danced around the room singing Abba’s Money, Money, Money.
All right, all jokes aside (and I COULD go on for awhile, yet), this isn’t a bad movie. Mel is an ex-soldier who wants to stay out of the American Revolution erupting all around him, but jumps into the fray with a gun in one hand and a tomahawk in the other when it explodes into his pastoral world.
Who can resist cheering for the peaceful, little guy finally rising up to stomp the ass of some really evil, one-dimensional stereotype? Good action scenes, steady acting and a story that just manages to stay on the right side of ridiculous make this enjoyable enough for action fans and women who love Mel’s butt.

Starring: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi,

Director: James Foley

This mystery/suspense project seems to be mainly concerned with being a jiggle fest for Berry with plenty of slow, panning body shots of her. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing, but it seems to interrupt the focus off of the story, which flounders in spots and then has an ending that is like throwing a bucket of paint. It gets everything, but nothing is done well.

Berry plays Rowena, an investigative journalist who, in a round about way, comes to be investigating her friend’s murder. Her only suspect is Harrison Hill, a womanizing advertising mogul, played by Bruce Willis, who seems to have had an Internet romance, turned real with the victim. More evidence is needed (as it always is) so Rowena goes undercover in Hill’s company to try to get close to him and his computer. Since online relationships figure somewhat prominently in this movie there are a lot of scenes of the characters typing furiously that kind of reminded me of a cross between Disclosure and You Got Mail. Anyway, Rowena and her friend Miles (who sure seems to have a lot of time on his hands) go after Harrison in all the ways they can think of.

Not a bad movie, but it’s missing the elements that could have made it a good movie. The acting is average, but the script offered the performers little to work with. It is crammed full of wooden cliché dialogue and the characters have little about them to make us care. On top of that the story lacks a sharp focus. Suitable fare for hardcore mystery fans and those who just want to look at Halle Berry for a couple of hours.

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Ben Wishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Alan Rickman

This started out as a meandering, but mildly interesting period piece that takes a hard left into absurdity in the last half hour. The sets and costumes are good, but the performances are inconsistent, including a distracting muddled accent by, of all people, Dustin Hoffman. John Hurt adds some atmosphere with effective, but uncredited narration (I can only guess he saw the finished product and took his name off – good call, John). The story is quite original, but is very slow and dark, with a lead character who doesn’t seem to fit anywhere, including this movie.

Ben Wishaw is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan in 18th century France, whose brutish, peasant life is enlightened only by his enjoyment of smells. Young Mr. Grenouille is very gifted in his olfactory sense, but completely lost in interactions with people. In time, he begins to apprentice for a down-on-his-luck perfume maker played by Dustin Hoffman. Soon, he has learned all about making perfume (and I had learned more than I ever wanted to know) and created a hundred commercially successful fragrances, but he is still not happy. In time, he is off to search for more knowledge and to try to capture the perfect scent that eludes him. We know that something must have gone wrong, however, since the film opened with Mr. Grenouille awaiting a particularly cruel execution, but how it comes to this, i will not say, in case you still want to see this movie after my review .

The first two thirds of this movie, which is apparently based on a novel that I will never read, is ponderously hypnotic and I was all set to rate it higher, until silliness set in and tried to fly by me with a straight face. Nope. I didn’t like the third act here, at all and found the rest of the movie only moderately passable. Those who like gritty period pieces, in the From Hell genre, you may find this one palatable, but it is nowhere near as good as that Johnny Depp project. I don’t need supernatural smelling ability to tell me that something stunk, as I watched this.

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Starring: John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duvall

This is a wonderful, and uplifting drama about human potential, as well as our treatment of those who don’t fit into our comfort zone of abilities. John Travolta, who plays the ordinary man better than anyone other actor (except, maybe Tom Hanks), nails this role. For those of you who were forced to read Flowers For Algernon in school, you already pretty much know the basic story here. It was an enjoyable book and is a fantastic movie.

John Travolta plays George O’Malley, a simple mechanic who finds learning difficult until one night when he sees a brilliant light that knocks him off his feet. From that time on, George finds learning and logic coming far easier to him. As he grapples with the cause of this phenomenon, and deals with all its effects, both on him and on how others react to him, O’Malley struggles to keep his life together. Forest Whitaker lends support as his best friend, and Robert Duvall, as his friend, and the local doctor. At the same time, he is trying to win the heart of a defensive, single mother played by Kyra Sedgwick. That’s quite a lot of stuff to have going on, even for a guy who appears to have superhuman capabilities.

This is an excellent, and very underrated film, that is another of my favorites. The sense of wonder it brings, along with the warm characters created, make this a very enjoyable viewing experience.

Director: Gore Verbinski

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander

Hmmm, here’s an idea. Let’s make a sequel to a story primarily driven by a single character, and then not even put that character on screen for the first 45 minutes. After that, lets bury this charismatic star in a pile of mediocre ‘pirates’ and add a convoluted plot that cuts into the action that made the first Pirates movies popular in their niche. This movie is a mess. The first two chapters in this series were action orgies, carried by powerhouse performances by Depp’s colorful self-created character. This sequel wants to tell every character’s story, but even in this three-hour marathon, there is not enough time (or interest) to go around. It is slow-starting, action-challenged and is still saddled with Orlando Bland, who has the screen presence of a dish rag, and Kiera Whosely, who is as special as your average Tuesday afternoon and whose Swann character is only slightly better.

Well, Barbossa (Rush), Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Swann (Knightly) feel they have to get Capt. Jack (Depp) back to help a proposed pirate alliance (and save their quickly sinking film) to stand against Lord Cutler Beckett who now has Davy Jones under his control. All of these characters, and others, have their own agendas and it is hard to follow the motivations and shifting alliances. The ending seems to be setting up for yet another sequel. Lord, Jesus, let me be wrong; just this once.

I didn’t particularly care for the first two movies in this series (can you tell?). The action scenes were overdone and Depp had to carry the films, but they made plenty of treasure, so another one was made. By this third release, Verbinski drifted from the successful seas of the series to dead waters and then furiously tried to paddle back to lucrative territory. Even fans of the series will find this one noticeably weaker, and those forced to go because of a tasteless partner, or an agreement to review every crap movie that comes out, will find it to be a near-intolerable, three hour irritation session.