Movie review The Illusionist (2006)

Here it is the days of September, typically the time when films that could’nt make the summer roster get dumped, and yet I’ve just seen one of the years c. H. Best films. With the packet we as well get a significant comeback performance by Edward Norton, who stars as Eisenheim, the form of address character. Norton’s character begins as a peasant course of instruction boy in 19th c Austria world Health Organization, in a fabled fashion, meets a magician by a shoetree who offers some magic trick tips earlier dissapearing (with the shoetree - it gets better). Young Eisenheim falls for a beautiful young lady friend of nobleness who wishes him to be able-bodied to cover them from her dissaproving family. He is unable to and hence bereft and alone he searches the far corners of the earth to find all the great magician secrets.

Fifteen years transpire and he returns, delivery with him an elaborate stage show complete with hired hands from the Orient. His show captures the phantasy of a police examiner played with resolute splendour by Paul Giamatti - who is really decorous our nearly solid character performer. The inspector is also the confidante of the Archduke’s son, played by Rufus Sewell with a bite of the villainous zest he displayed in 2001’s A Knights Tale. The Duke Prince sees the Illusionists testify and brings along his future st. Brigid (Jessica Biel), who scarce so happens to be Eisenheim’s puerility love. She volunteers for an act as of semblance an afterward the old flame is rekindled. This sets in motion a rivalry involving the Prince’s attempts to prove Eisenhauer a pretender, as well as Norton and Beil plotting an escape from Austria and Giamatti trying to outsmart the fleeing lovers while trying to keep his job. It is play watching Giamatti work his magic as he tries to figure out Eisenheim and outmaneuver the Prince while anchoring the film from drifting into phantasy. Norton and Biel are both restrained and plethoric with emotional intensity, giving the plastic film both meaning and a sense of magic.

In the end we experience the real magic of true sexual love, illusions of many kinds, with start rate performances and terrific set and costume intention. Possible Oscar contender.

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Movie review Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Tim Richard Burton follows up the underrated Mars Attacks with his visually stunning take on Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepyheaded Hollow.

Johnny Depp stars as an intellectual forensics expert sent to inquire a twine of grisly beheadings in a modest town outside of New York circa 1799.

As expected Burton has fashioned a beautiful looking moving picture with lucullan costumes, brobdingnagian sets, wild special personal effects and a stunning scotch from Danny Elfman. Most surprising is an great performance from Depp wHO exhibits a fun-loving attitude as good as an excellent sense of comical timing.

The screenplay was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (7) with some help from Kevin Yagher (he created the Chucky doll for ChildÕs Play). Unfortunately the screenplay is not as striking as Burton’s directive. That’s not to say that it’s bad, simply it is disjointed at times and offers a less than stellar climax.

In the end nonetheless, this is Burton’s baby and as always, he commands the show and takes the audience to another world. Although Sleepy-eyed Hollow is quite fucking, it girdle on a tongue-in-cheek path and as a resultant role it is a fulgurant marvel. Sleepyheaded Hollow isn’t the topper film of the year, yet it is one of the best to look at.

it rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I loved the tone of this flick and Johnny Depp is rad.

This non a inspection but a question. I am truly searching for the name of the lamp/latern/candle holder type object that spins using a burning candle’s heat and projecting moving shadows on the wall of witches in flight featured in a scenery in the movie "Sleepy Hollow". Please reply. Thank you for your time and consideration.

I enjoyed this film although it had a slightly fairytale quality to it but that just made it all the more enjoyable for me.

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Movie review November (2005)

November is a picture that really keeps you on your toes. It’s the type of picture that may confuse you as it’s unfolding, but rest assured, it does make sense by the end.

In the drama/thriller, Courtney Cox plays lensman Sophie Jacobs. She’s happy and in love with her wondrous boyfriend (James LeGros), just suffers from headaches brought on by a secret that she harbors. Her life takes a drastic turn when a stay at a convenience shop takes a tragic move around.

Cox does a serious job here, playing against type. She’s quiet and restrained and far less glamorous than she is on Friends. James LeGros is likeable as her understanding boyfriend.

Director Greg Harrison is an proficient craftsmen and November grabbed ahold of me from the make go with it’s tortuous plot social structure, varying tones, sharp filming, crisp well-grounded design and crafty redaction techniques. While it did have me guessing, it wasn’t in an annoyance, pretentious sort of way, and by the end, I was surprised and satisfied. It’s kind of a celluloid in the same tradition as Jacob’s Ladder and The Sixth Sense.

What really impressed me about November was how good it looked. It was shot in fifteen days for about $150,000. Proof as yet again, that a good movie doesn’t have to cost $100,000,000 to return the goods.

Have you ever had your life flash ahead your eyes? November is a film that depicts that identical scenario in a compelling way. This wasn’t one of the big buzz films of the fete, but that makes it no less striking. Hopefully people will see it when it hits theaters. It’s rattling quite good.

I happened onto this one - pretty a great deal by stroke because the film I was planning on beholding was sold out and I’ tolerant of miss Courtney Coxswain - anyways I over up liking it quite a a bit. Though there were a lot of shockers that I won’t spoil, I thought they were done well and it’s ane of those films that really makes you think and count your blessings. Anyway - I believably wouldn’t stimulate checked it out if I hadn’t seen the review on your site and it tuned out to be a ripe thing. so thank you - you guys do a nice job.

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Movie review Shes All That (1999)

Once once more, a film producer has tested to obtain the success that King John Hughes achieved in the 80s with films like The Breakfast Club and Some Kind Of Howling. And at one time again, a filmmaker has not succeeded.

Much like last year’s Can’t Just Wait, this film is devoid of any originality. In fact, it was downright dull. Even the semi-talented frame couldn’t keep this unitary afloat. Zack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is the smartest guy in school. His buddies bet him that he will not be able to turn the school wonk (Rachel Vivien Leigh Cook) into the prom queen. Guess who wins that reckon.

She’s All That is a completely contrived mess that stumbles from one scene to the next. It’s as if the filmmakers themselves were world-weary with the material. The standout in the mould is Saint Matthew Lillard (Scream) as a goofy player who gets his kicks by observation himself on MTV’s The Real Worldly concern. Ultimately, his character is pointless, as are to the highest degree of them in this snore-fest. However, the worst part almost the film is that Prinze Jr. and Cook have no chemistry. Most of Whoremonger Hughes’ films put a smile on my face. This one gave me a look of disappointment.

i absolutely love this film, it is the best photographic film ever made with Freddy Prinze Jr. hes absolutely gorgeous and the girl who plays Lanie is amazingly favourable and awe-inspiring at acting. i dont think anyone-else could have played the part as good as her. ‘Taylor’ is quite a ripe actress and i rattling like the fact that everything she says to Freddy backfires and is said bet on to her.

This has got to be the best film i’ve ever seen and i will definitley watch it once more.

She’s all That wasn’t Casablanca but I arse think of a lot worse material that’s made for kids. I do think FPJ has played himself out, he of necessity to judge something heavy go toward Depp lol

i think that the film shes all that is wikid its funy and oh my god is paul alice Malsenior Walker and freddie prince junior fit sidesplitter it was good visual perception them in their swim suits n i making love all the other films that apostle of the Gentiles walker and freddie prince junior. oooohhhhhhhhh my god their buff but shhhh dont tell my boyfriend

Zach is in truth hott - If anyone is all that it’s Freddie Jr.!!!

hey i love freddy prince jr hes hot!!!

Unreal celluloid!!!

I personally loved this film. yes the storyline was uninspired and the chemistry wasnt right merely the underlying message unnatural me and then and it still does now, you can observe love all over and to never judge people on

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Movie review The Producers (2005)

Christmastime brought not matchless but iI remakes around larger than life characters running amok in the streets of New York, one a worthy re-imagining "King Kong" and the other a artificial retread "The Producers" that gives it’s possess classic interrogation "Where did we go correct?" an all likewise easy answer - "Nowhere!" The Producers 2005, to be more accurate, is a cinema version of a successful Broadway interpretation of Mel Brooks’ beloved 1968 cinema classic, from which he wrote the script as well as several young songs and production numbers racket for the stage variation. A play that enjoyed one of the about successful runs in Broadway history and in 2001 made turned with a record-setting number of Tony Awards, which then begs the obvious question more or less this newest remake "Where did they go wrong?"

It must have looked like such a no-brainer, that theater director Susan Stroman (who directed the Broadway version) literally checked hers at the door and instead of making a movie, she quite literally filmed the play. Very seldom does the tv camera do anything other than watch the play which is perhaps the almost notable shoes where Stroman went wrong. Even so with Saint Matthew Broderick on board to reprise his mega-successful theatrical role as comptroller Leo Efflorescence (the section which was "back in the day" the first of many successful collaborations between Gene Samuel Wilder and Brooks. Pencil in Nathan Lane who would reprise his "Kong-sized" stage office as Soap Bialystock (the hack Great White Way producer who’d probably sell his mother back to the Germans for a hit play - the part played so masterfully by Null Mostel closely 30 eld past) Throw in Genus Uma Thurman for sizzle and scenery and let’s lend Broadway to Peoria.

If you’re not familiar with the premise of the story, it’s definitely worth a paragraph. After a string of failures, Soap (Lane) is reprimanded by his accountant Leo (Broderick) because in order to take a little of the stick out of his up-to-the-minute flop he fools around with a few numbers pool, or as Leo calls it "cooking the books." As a flip small aside, Lion suggests that Max could probably make more money if he produced a total failure. "Cha-ching" After crunching a figure or deuce, the idea looks like it power just pencil out. Shortly obsessed with failure, the two crackpots begin their search for the worst script in town. A play so bad they’d be lucky to make through nonpareil performance earlier it’s booed right off the Capital White Room.

While sorting through a pile of potential bombs, they happen upon a play so bad, so patently horrendous that the beauty of it literally brings them to tears. The Play "Spring For Hitler" by Nazi playwright Franz Leibkind (Will Ferrell, wHO makes a game movement). Springtime for Hitler is a imaginary musical intended as exoneration for Adolph, the sort of thing they conceive of that will have patrons leaving the theater on a dead run. Simply to ice the deal they lease a managing director who speaks fluent gibberish and is accompanied by a scream ponce of an assistant and before you throne say Fahrfugnugen they’ve got a major hit on their custody, which may well country the iI of them in the poky.

What happens to The Producers can be summed up in the translation. Van Wyck Brooks won an Oscar in 1968 for the original screenplay, thanks to Wilder’s painful paranoia and quiet hysterics playing off of Mostel’s unblushing greed and egotism. In it’s translation to the stage Brooks added muckle of dick jokes and gay jokes and everything is broadened to the point that subtlety gets blown way past the guy sitting in the back row. Unfortunately the execution of the fib and the Broadway melodic numbers turn this into an overlong and cumbersome affair. Lane and Broderick fail to translate their stage antics into credible cinematic performances. In some instances I felt as if the two are looking at the audience puppyeyed, incertain if anyone got the joke they just attempted. It seems obvious that job one as the director would have been to feeling down the stagy projection and enclose a more organic constituent to all of the relationships. Every punch line seems to include a laughter pause. It was also obvious that all of the decent laughs came from lines out of the original photographic film. As previously mentioned the cinematography is virtually nonexistent and Thurman’s’ Ulla is a sketch character version of a Swede with an emphasis your ordinary third grader could manage. The same goes for Will Ferrell’s German. though he does go for it and gets a few chuckles with his constant concern about His Fuhrer not getting his proper dignity. I might also honorable mention the farcical overuse of gay stereotypes prancing round like insufferable poofs, telling a double entendre identification number called "Keep It Gay" that is beyond the pallid. As for the other numbers. Just now plain oil production. In fact the only good euphony is in the "Springtime For Hitler" production itself.

This painfully disappointing remake simon Marks the number 1 and belike last field day for Susan Stroman, as a theatre director of feature film. She directs the film as if the camera is an assumption and should only be used meagerly. The 2001 musical adaptation is jam-packed to the brim with unnecessary caricatures, asides, stereotypes and bloated musical travesties that load the punch of Mel Brooks fierily irreverent humour. In my opinion, they should have been glad with the Tony’s, thither certainly won’t be whatsoever Oscar spill surrounding this big, noisy, annoying and often offensive clunker of a plastic film. Brooks should have known better than to trample on his own garden. Brooks himself actually gets the last word in this thing, appearing amid the chorus line girls in the final production number, "Go home, he says, "It’s over." Ironically there are probably a number of people that had already gone home and considering his sophisticated years, it’s possible that "it’s over’ power be in reference to his career.

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Movie review Boiler Room (2000)

Perhaps the biggest surprise at the festival was this stock broker thriller from first-class honours degree time director Ben Jr.. I think you could call this film Bulwark Street meets Glengarry Glen Ross. Thanks to endless energy, however, and some terrific performances, Boiler Room never feels like a cheap riptide off of those terrific films. Or else, it feels fresh and exciting.

Giovani Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan) is a college dropout who runs a casino out of his home. He finds a new job when a quaker introduces him into the world of the stock market. Truth be told, Boiler Room offers tremendous acting from Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long and Ron Rifkin, but it’s the endless energy and visual elan of first base time director Ben Jr. that gives this film it’s flicker.

I loved the picture, great on every level of film making! Was the motion picture based on a true story?????????

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Movie review Art of War (2000)

When a film is not screened for critics, it’s ordinarily a pretty bad signal. Thus I wasn’t expecting a slap-up deal from the modern Wesley Snipes action opus Art of War.

Wesley Snipes plays a man who does undercover work for the United Nations and finds his life turned top side down when he is accused of assassinating a Chinese politician. Fortunately, he manages to escape custody. While on the run, he tries to piece together what has actually happened (Runaway anyone?)

Director Christian Duguay has a lot of potential. Many of his scenes receive a graceful flow that bring to mind the work of John McTiernan (Die Hard). On the other hand, some of the activeness sequences ar way over the top, while the plot tries to be grounded in realism. Duguay also seems very concerned in engineering science. This film has more than spying gizmos than Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State.

Art of War also tends to be too complex for it’s own good. It starts off pretty intriguing, only soon becomes bogged down by far too many characters and unnecessary plotlines. The identity of the film’s substantial villain as well becomes painfully obvious. To top it off, the film’s orgasm offers a fist competitiveness that is just plain ludicrous. Stuck in the middle of all this is the underrated Snipes. He adds a humankind to this film that gives it a often needed advance.

Although dark glasses of The Fugitive are apparent in Art of War, it really owes more to Mission: Unimaginable with it’s high tech devices and it’s spot thriller feel. Unfortunately, it’s not as strong as those films, but it does extend a good Snipes vehicle and a director to possibly bet for in the future.

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Movie review The Man in The Iron Mask (1998)

It’s a shame that this will probably be the film that finally knocks Titanic out of the big top spot. The Man in the Fe Mask is an unnecessarily long, and not awfully exciting await at the later geezerhood of the Three Musketeer’s. Very disappointing coming from writer Randall Wallace world Health Organization also makes his directorial debut. This is a far cry from his brilliant, Oscar winning screenplay for Braveheart.

Wallace does a poor job here. For a swashbuckler, The Man in the Smoothing iron Mask lacks the sparks and spirit that made these types of films so exciting back in the olden days. This is a low-rent Robin Hood/Three Musketeer’s, and those films were nothing to write home about either.

The big draw here, will be Leonardo Dicaprio, who plays dual roles. That of an chesty king, and his twin Brother world Health Organization has been hidden away and jailed. Unfortunately, this is Dicaprio’s worst carrying out to date–mostly due to such shallow writing. If you want to see Dicaprio in top pattern, watch Basketball Diaries, or his brilliant, Academy Prize nominated performance in What’s Eating Cass Gilbert Grape. Or sit through Titanic once more, in which Dicaprio shows the stuff stars ar made of.

Rounding out the cast of A-list stars, are Gerard Gerard Depardieu, Jeremy Chains, John Malkovich, and Gabriel Byrne. All do sizable jobs. Aside from their solid performances, the only other nice thing I can state about this film is that it looks good. The cinematography, Art Direction, and Grievance, are all beautiful. Regrettably, that’s non enough to recommend The Man in the Fe Mask. If Wallace writes another plastic film like this, chivalry real will be dead!

the movie is very well for my money and is the movie I’d take with me to the desert island.

I don’t like the movie but i love Leo the Lion - I guess that kinda shallow - just it’s the truth.

This movie isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn’t the best, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The writing, I moldiness agree, was not very good. I’m not familiar with DiCaprio, but I think his performance as King Joseph Louis Barrow XIV was very estimable at some points. Others, though . . . ehhh. I wouldn’t recommend it as a movie to watch when you want high quality writing material, but as something to watch when you’re world-weary.

And the best parts of the movie were the laughable inserts to keep audiences entertained. The small bits of humour here and there.

But the dramatic event around the end was worse okeh, not worse than observation a daylight soap. I think it shows that the writers were acquiring tired after such a while with these characters. Either that, or the actors were. Or both. Either room, the end-ish parts weren’t good. I expected more.

As for the cast . . . I don’t think it could have been better, but then again, I’m not intimate with the actors. Don’t take my advice around the redact, seriously.

In conclusion, I give it three extinct of quintet stars. Perhaps three and a half, just to be gracious.

If I was a girl I woulkd do Leo no

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Movie review Chopper (2001)

Since Pulp magazine Fiction, violence has actually taken
center stage in the movies. The problem is, excessively many films feature furiousness for the sake of violence. Cleaver is unlike in the sense that the violence really propels the storey. Taken from the novel by felonious Mark "Chopper" Thomas Reid, Chopper is a sometimes darkly shady, sometimes unsettling look at a disturbed character world Health Organization serves as both the protagonist and the antagonist. Fueled by an unbelievable
performance by Eric Bana (who manages to be both a charmer and completely terrific), Chopper is a film I won’t soon forget. And mark my words, the reality will be seeing more than of
Eric Bana in the future. This cat is incredible.
choppers.jpg

You yanks don’t know what a flaming good entertainer Eric Bana is - all of ya should see this movie and try to forget about the whale and Ilium and the rest of that Hollywood twaddle.

I love him…really good movie…I love if Eric Bana… well, you know.

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Movie review The Squid and The Whale (2005)

The Calamary and the Whale is the directorial debut of screenwriter Noah Baumbach, co-writer of last years Wes Anderson comedy The Animation Aquatic. Baumbach draws upon his childhood experiences for this fib of a family approach apart at the seams and his inspiration makes for a film which is at once tragic and risible. And besides very frank and truthful.

Jeff Daniels (in arguably the best performance of his life history) plays a professor of literature and his married woman (Laura Linney) is an aspiring author. Obviously a recipe for disaster in any marriage and soon their strained relationship becomes too broken to fix and the two separate. This in turn leads to games of favouritism with their two sons, 17 year old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), and a preteen Frank (Owen Kline) who ar struggling with school and relationship problems of their own.

Past and submit marital indiscretions also reveal themselves all while the parents spiel twisted mind games with each former and their boys. Before long the allegiances become obvious as the eldest sides with Dada and the youngest with Mom. Laura Linney’s past times affair is revealed to their elderly son and the younger son discovers she is having an affair with the tennis teacher, played hilariously by William Baldwin. When Daniels’ character finds out around all this he responds with the same bemused indifference with which he’s held all of her infidelities and trades fours by piquant in a dalliance of his possess with a student, a good Anna Paquin. The parents indicate the intellectual value of each others’ careers, which seems the result of two people brought up in the mentality of 1960’s cerebral counterculturalism. A trait as well evident in their instead Laisse Faire parenting methods. They criticism the intelligence of their sons teachers and counselors. Jeff Daniels even uses the term "Phillistines" to describe those not as genteel as himself.

Eisenberg and Kline exculpate themselves well as they did in The Settlement, and because the film is largely biographical of Baumbauch (Walt) The Calamari and the Whale is more a coming-of-age story than a portrait of the ravages of disjoint. As a result the pathos presented can be more easily laughed around. Walt struggles with plagiarism in school and by taking sides with his father too adopts his somewhat misguided attitudes toward women. Frank, as the mama’s boy has much deeper psychological scars that begin to manifest themselves in depart sexual behavior that presents itself at school. I’ll just call him a serial masturbater and rent your imagination run with that much. There is some unquestionably hilarious and profane backchat between the brothers about everything including their parents novels, which neither of them stimulate read, withal their bad behavior does not bring about alarm on the part of their parents, because of their desperate desire to remain modern and hip joint. Anything to avoid playacting like their own parents I hypothesise.

The determination of the film doesn’t bother to offer any significant resolutions, except for a personal change in the older son, wHO begins to look at his family in a more honest and true light. The Squid and the Whale is definitely the work of somebody who has suffered the tribulations of a fractured home-life himself. I don’t know if this picture represents catharsis for Baumbauch, nevertheless it is a smart and often moving look at the realities of household life as seen through the foggy rose-colored-glasses of post-counterculture mores.

Personally, I thought much of this film was awfully pretentious. All four of these characters basically just took turns being obnoxious and unlikable and though the acting was good, I certainly didn’t come away from it, thinking I’d seen one of the ten charles Herbert Best films of the year. I truly don’t empathise why it has recieved the critical love that it has. Maybe it just reach a slight too close to home for me, but I didn’t find it amusive so a great deal as I did sad and irresponsible. Next time this Burnbauch guy wants to drop off his messed up puerility, maybe he ought to find a shrink not investors. Thumbs down.

What a tosser that cat is. Squid and the Whale is a lovely little picture show, that dares to say the truth about a lot of things. I enjoyed it very much and if I constitute anything pretentious it was the remarks of Richard Culver.

It’s a well job you all changed Pharisees to Phillistines because i was ready to ridicule your ass to no end for that somewhat major gaffe. In that respect is a bit of a difference after all.

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