GethinVanH
Joined Apr 2006
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The last good movie Rob Reiner directed was "Misery" in 1990, nearly 20 years ago. Since then he's been pumping out a lot of crap like "The American President" and "The Bucket List". Flipped falls into the same category. It's a movie about a suburban, middle-class white American kid who comes of age. To top it all off, I discovered that Flipped is based on a book which takes place in the 2000s. You've seen this movie if you've seen 'My Girl' or 'The Wonder Years' you've already seen this movie.
American Graffiti and Hairspray are at least more challenging and add something new. 'Flipped' adds nothing new except for a dual-narrative from both the teen boy and teen girl. This is interesting but since the male character is so utterly devoid of any charisma I couldn't stand listening to him. Reiner got it right with 'Stand By Me' by using an adult narrator (Dreyfuss) who could actually handle the task. The young actors are pretty bad narrators.
There's nothing new here and it's pretty much an all-white cast. This is not a time to be sentimental about with it's lack of diversity and sterile environments. Reiner had the option of having the film take place in the 2000s and obviously rejected it. He prefers to work in the cocoon which is the 1960s coming of age story.
American Graffiti and Hairspray are at least more challenging and add something new. 'Flipped' adds nothing new except for a dual-narrative from both the teen boy and teen girl. This is interesting but since the male character is so utterly devoid of any charisma I couldn't stand listening to him. Reiner got it right with 'Stand By Me' by using an adult narrator (Dreyfuss) who could actually handle the task. The young actors are pretty bad narrators.
There's nothing new here and it's pretty much an all-white cast. This is not a time to be sentimental about with it's lack of diversity and sterile environments. Reiner had the option of having the film take place in the 2000s and obviously rejected it. He prefers to work in the cocoon which is the 1960s coming of age story.
I like Christopher Nolan. I did before he even did the Batman movies. Following was quite an interesting movie and Memento is one of the best movies of its decade. The Batman movies were good too, Nolan did something new and interesting with Batman and made Tim Burton look like an art school douche.
This is all to preface that Inception is a mediocre movie. No, it's not especially deep. A dream within a dream within a dream. It's about as philosophically deep as The Matrix and the execution is slightly better.
Leo is Leo. He essentially plays the same character he did in "Shutter Island", which I thought was a total mess. His wife is crazy and Leo just wants to set everything straight and go back to a normal existence. He'll do anything it takes and meanwhile will grimace, look stern and squint his way through the movie.
The plot is decent but I thought it got bogged down in senseless shoot-outs, three layers of shoot-outs actually, which are all happening simultaneously. The direction here is pretty clever but the movie isn't. The scenes in the second dream layer take place in a wintry landscape where there is a fortress on the side of a mountain. The whole thing is very James Bond, especially when guys on motorized ski-machines start coming out of the forest shooting guns. There are a lot of shots fired from guns, all kinds of guns, with probably thousands of bullets, few hit anyone. At that point I give up. I've seen it before and I pretty much started losing interest.
This is a blockbuster, not a movie about characters, plot or right-and-wrong. It's not thought-provoking in the least. The technology is never explained, which is probably for the best as it's inexplicable. Although, 'Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine" both did a much better job without ever explaining much of anything. The story is interesting enough to recommend. A few effects scenes are good.
The acting isn't very strong either. Leo acts like he does in most of his other movies, notably "Shutter Island" and "The Departed". He has his game face on. I'm kind of sick of his game face. It's that 'Something very serious is happening' look that is way over the top. http://tinyurl.com/29hqqcp (Let's discuss the serious part of the movie).
This is all to preface that Inception is a mediocre movie. No, it's not especially deep. A dream within a dream within a dream. It's about as philosophically deep as The Matrix and the execution is slightly better.
Leo is Leo. He essentially plays the same character he did in "Shutter Island", which I thought was a total mess. His wife is crazy and Leo just wants to set everything straight and go back to a normal existence. He'll do anything it takes and meanwhile will grimace, look stern and squint his way through the movie.
The plot is decent but I thought it got bogged down in senseless shoot-outs, three layers of shoot-outs actually, which are all happening simultaneously. The direction here is pretty clever but the movie isn't. The scenes in the second dream layer take place in a wintry landscape where there is a fortress on the side of a mountain. The whole thing is very James Bond, especially when guys on motorized ski-machines start coming out of the forest shooting guns. There are a lot of shots fired from guns, all kinds of guns, with probably thousands of bullets, few hit anyone. At that point I give up. I've seen it before and I pretty much started losing interest.
This is a blockbuster, not a movie about characters, plot or right-and-wrong. It's not thought-provoking in the least. The technology is never explained, which is probably for the best as it's inexplicable. Although, 'Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine" both did a much better job without ever explaining much of anything. The story is interesting enough to recommend. A few effects scenes are good.
The acting isn't very strong either. Leo acts like he does in most of his other movies, notably "Shutter Island" and "The Departed". He has his game face on. I'm kind of sick of his game face. It's that 'Something very serious is happening' look that is way over the top. http://tinyurl.com/29hqqcp (Let's discuss the serious part of the movie).
Like 'Baraka' and other documentaries which show images from the world, both good and bad, "Petropolis" does not need narration to tell you what is going on in Northern Alberta. The images alone do it justice. You only need to see the images of the tailings ponds, hot crude gushing from pipes into lakes and bleak, colourless landscapes to know that this is truly environmental damage on a mass scale.
The film opens with the camera panning across the unspoiled wilderness of the boreal forests of Northern Alberta. Suddenly, the viewer is over an industrial wasteland like none other. The total size of the tar sands is 140,000 square kilometres. By comparison the area of England is 130,000. There are also plans to extensively expand the oil sands in the near future.
The supplements on the DVD are interesting as well and perhaps should have been part of the 45 minute feature. There are interviews with local residents, a local doctor who speaks about increased cancer rates, a fisherman who talks of increased numbers of mutilated fish and residents of Fort McMurray who talk of the horrible toxic smell which now regularly covers the town.
This is a good documentary for anyone interested in the impact of the oil sands on the ecology of North Alberta.
The film opens with the camera panning across the unspoiled wilderness of the boreal forests of Northern Alberta. Suddenly, the viewer is over an industrial wasteland like none other. The total size of the tar sands is 140,000 square kilometres. By comparison the area of England is 130,000. There are also plans to extensively expand the oil sands in the near future.
The supplements on the DVD are interesting as well and perhaps should have been part of the 45 minute feature. There are interviews with local residents, a local doctor who speaks about increased cancer rates, a fisherman who talks of increased numbers of mutilated fish and residents of Fort McMurray who talk of the horrible toxic smell which now regularly covers the town.
This is a good documentary for anyone interested in the impact of the oil sands on the ecology of North Alberta.