Category Archives: Movie Reviews

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Review

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Very few times in the history of film has there ever been, or ever will be, a film so monumentally beautiful, both physically and mentally. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was so vividly told that even knowing from the beginning that it was a fantasy film, it still felt so real. At no point during this almost three hour movie did I once want it to end. It was a long movie that felt short because it brilliantly depicted an 80 year life. You’re not going to want to miss this one.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a fantastic tale of a boy born at the age of 80 and ages backwards until his death at the age of 0. Its a spectacle of a story about a man’s unique life and love. Its hard to put into words, the lasting affect that this movie holds on you. You need to see for yourself and feel every feeling that Benjamin feels. He’s an innocent and kind man aging mentally and growing younger physically. We learn to love him early on and we as an audience journey through life with him, meeting many different people, experiencing many different adventures, and being saddened when he’s not old enough to speak.

This film is getting a lot of well-deserved Oscar buzz at the moment. It’s front-runner for Writing, Directing, and even Best Picture, and yes it probably will win the oscar for Best Picture. This is a brilliant movie and it would be a well-deserved oscar. David Fincher needs some recognition for once. He’s directed classics from Fight Club to SE7EN and now this is his newest work of genius. 

What’s so spectacular about Benjamin Button is that from the get go, you can tell that it’s a wonderful story begging to be told. It’s manages to have an incredible texture and beauty  that makes it an epic materpiece, but it doesn’t force itself upon you. It tells its amazing story with David Fincher at the helm and Brad Pitt acting to perfection. It tells its amazing story quite flawlessly and with every passing minute you say to yourself that this beautiful story could be told in many different ways, but no possible could it have been told better than this. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a phenomenon in film form. An awe-inspiring, graceful, work of art that will never be forgot in the pages of historical cinema.

Grade: A+

Slumdog Millionaire Review

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Slumdog Millionaire is a wonderful tale, so originally told, about life, love and, most of all, destiny. What drew me to Slumdog Millionaire was the fact that its such an original and yet entertaining idea. I could tell there was a good story here, but you would need the right storyteller/director and that’s just what they got with Trainspotting’s own, Danny Boyle. Visually the movie was incredible, which is surprising because hearing about the movie it doesn’t sound that visually appealing to the eye. Danny Boyle expertly used different angles and color to make these slums look both dirty and beautiful. 

Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a young “slumdog” named Jamal Malik whose participating in an Indian version of the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. One question away from the top prize, the show runs out of time. Jamal is roughly interrogated by police to tell them if/how he cheated. All are skeptical because not even doctors or lawyers could make it this far. Jamal explains how he knew each individual answer through different expiriances he’s faced in his past life. We then see how Jamal grew up and went through many events that all helped him later in this very show. 

Jamal tells a believable and epic tale of his life and love, but the question that still remains is why is this show so important to a boy who seems to have no care for materials or money. That and many more questions are answered in the coming-of-age story of Slumdog Millionaire. The acting is top-notch and with no big name actors the movie seems more real in the mind of an audience member. This movie has something for everyone and it will be enjoyed by anyone, you might think I’ve given away a lot, but what I’ve said is revealed in the first 5 minutes. This film has been getting a lot of well-deserved oscar buzz and I agree that the movie should be nominated, but sadly it does not deserve the win.

Grade: A+

Australia Review

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I saw this movie about a week ago and I apologize for the time it took me to finally post it, but honestly because of its length , it is a lot to take in. Unfortunately the fact that there’s a lot to take in has nothing to do with much thought or moral criticism in the movie. First of all, I don’t know why, but I hated the beginning of the movie, it was corny in the way the plane traveled the map to get to Australia and the whole kangaroo sequence was incredibly annoying and not at all as comical as it was trying to be. Fortunately the movie picked up and was much better than I thought it would be after watching the first 20 minutes. I finally walked out of the theater with a sense that I had just seen decent, but over-long movie that tried way too hard to be an epic romance tale, but in a way failed, while with a few changes and some good editing could’ve actually slightly succeeded. 

The movie follows the story of a rich wife of a landowner from Australia who inherits land from her husband the size of Maryland. Instead of selling the land like she went there to do, she instead attempts to trek the cattle through Australia with the help of a new found love interest known as “The Drover” and a newly found half white and half black son. They end up being seperated by war and attempt to find each other again. What bothered me the most was the way the movie was narrated by the boy the whole time during the entire 3 hour movie, where instead we could’ve just watched the movie and figure it out for ourselves. Also, the whole magic aspect of the movie was highly annoying and unrealistic. 

There were a few things I did enjoy very much so about this film. I enjoyed the acting by both leading thespians I’ve always liked both Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and their parts in this movie sustain my liking for both. The movie was visually fantastic. The whole movie reminded me of the “By The Sea” song in Sweeney Todd. You’d know exactly what I mean if you were to see the movie. The really big criticism I have is its length that wasn’t needed in the slightest. There are movies with a lot deeper and morally important stories that are told in a 2 hour time span. 3 hours was just  a way for the movie makers to make the film look like its an epic oscar contender when its anything but. I also hated the stereotypical way the movie killed off an amazing amount of characters, but kept alive only the important ones. For fans like me of the epic genre, you’ve been warned, I only pray that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button can perfectly pull off the epic tone that this film was trying so hard for.

Grade: C

Quantum of Solace Review

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Let me preface this review by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but there is no doubt that I enjoyed Casino Royale much better. Casino Royale managed to change the entire Bond series for the better. It took the campy and corny old Bonds and brought them into the real world. 007 became a realistic action/drama movie, and for the most part Quantum sticks to the rules that Casino Royale set for it. 

Quantum of Solace is the story of James Bond finding a large quantity (quantum) of comfort (solace) in the avenging of a person he loved. In order to do so he must cross paths with a personal extremist named Dominic Greene who happens to control a company called Quantum that is trying to own the world’s must precious material. A different direction was took with this movie. It was extremely fast-paced and the running time was cut to the point of extreme. I loved the fast-paced direction it was going in, but it felt at times that the movie was rushing to its end instead of telling all the juicy details. 

Every action sequence was Bondish, but at the same time being very creative and intense. The dialogue was well-thought out and so were the character developments. Daniel Craig is great and I hope he does more with his career, but right now there is no one I would rather see playing this character. I loved the movie, but there are one large complaint I have with it. The greatest gimmick in film history ended because of this movie. In every single one of the 21 bond movies before this one, the line “the name’s bond, james bond” is uttered somewhere, but this movie just ended that tradition. And the question I ask is why?

For that reason, I was very mad walking out of the theater, but I can’t look past the fact that this was an extremely entertaining and well-thought out action movie that was at times even epic. The movie could’ve been better if it just changed a few simple details. I look back at my viewing and I see that I did just watch a very good movie that made one big mistake. Overall, Quantum of Solace was an extremely good movie and would have without question gotten an A+ from yours truly if it just said one more line.

Grade: A-

RockNRolla Review

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RockNRolla was a very entertaining film, but none-the-less, not what I expected. It was the slowest of Ritchie’s London crime capers, which wasn’t expected. It started out slow, but it got more and more fast paced as the movie went on. Out of Guy Ritchie’s fast-paced London crime capers, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is his best, but I would say that this at least ties with Snatch.  

The movie had all the right ingredients for a Guy Ritchie movie, great characters, great actors, great dialogue, and a jumbled plot involving such topics as, real-estate, violent junkies, war criminals, $7 million, a lucky painting, crayfish and a lot more. The movie was great, well executed, fun. A lot people say that Guy Ritchie isn’t a good director because he does the same type of film everytime, well to then I say, “yeah and that’s because he’s damn good at it”. No one has problems with Martin Scorsese making a lot of mobster movies. 

There were so many memorable scenes in this movie that makes you remember Lock Stock and Snatch. In the beginning I was thinking that the movie wasn’t going to be that good, but as the movie progressed, and the body count rose, I remembered whose movie I was watching and why. As a final note, I would like to say that I loved two characters the most in this movie, Lenny Cole, played by Tom Wilkinson, and Archie played by I don’t know, but he was great. My last words are this, Guy Ritchie has an incredible way of telling all his stories and his way has always been attempted to be duplicated, but no one can ever stand up with the original fast-paced cleverness of Guy Ritchie. 

Grade: A-

Pride and Glory Review

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Pride and Glory was the intense crime drama that Righteous Kill was aiming to be. It weaved an interesting plot about a family of cops and the corruption involved in their division. The leader of the corruption being married to a sister of the family. It had everything a movie like this needs. Great acting, intense tension building scenes, and rugged dialogue. The only problem was that there are a lot of movies that have almost the same plot, and while this movie did do a pretty good job with it, past movies have done much better with the idea of corruption in the police force. 

The acting was fantastic in this movie. I wouldn’t expect anything else from an actor like Edward Norton. He’s one of my favorite actors and he does justice in this type of role. Colin Farrell surprised me for once, he played a perfect dirty cop who was even more dangerous than the criminals he was supposed to be fighting. Jon Voight was good as always. It was a good movie and if you like this type of movie, go see it, but if you haven’t seen The Departed or L.A. Confidential, I would check those out first.

Grade: B-