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Body of Lies (2008)
6/10
Throws the same tired ideas out there with the same tired conventions.
25 November 2008
The war in the Middle East. It is a war we cannot win, because for the most part, it is too complicated to even understand. Perhaps we shouldn't be involved... Or maybe we should. Who's to say? That is, in essence, what Body of Lies seems to say. In fact, that is in essence, what every film about the conflict in the Middle East has had to say over the last five years. The problem is Body of Lies doesn't have a new, innovative or particularly interesting way to get that idea across.

In fact, even though Ridley Scott was once one of the great pioneers in film-making, this movie adheres to every filmic convention possible when it comes to a film set around terrorism in the Middle East. The music, the fast cuts, the shaky camera angles... It's all been done a thousand times.

Body Of Lies main port of call seems to be an unflinching view of paranoid reality in the Middle East. Leonardo DiCaprio's character understands that reality, kill or be killed. He is the protagonist but he kills a basically innocent man in the first fifteen minutes of the film because the man could have described his face. That is interesting and realistic and I was impressed. However, just as The audience feels as though it may be treated to a raw, gritty view of the Middle Eastern conflict... Without giving anything away... It turns into just another Hollywood movie towards the end.

Leonardio DiCaprio is a good actor. One day he might be regarded as one the greats. But he tries too earnestly to be tough in this film. He is still baby faced and relies on furrowing his brow and glaring all too often. I can't be sure if this was the direction he received or his own idea, but he simply wasn't convincing. Also we have seen his tough, jaded yet still-a-good-man thing before in Blood Diamond, where frankly, he did a better job.

What to say about Russel Crowe? He plays a character named Ed Hoffman, a high level CIA operator who heads up several large scale organizations in the Middle East. His character was, I suppose, important to the film, but I didn't really take anything significant away about him. His character is pig-headed, untrustworthy and arrogant. There was potential there for something interesting. But did his character really serve a purpose other than the plot? I'm not so sure. They certainly gave him some antique dialog. "Aint no one innocent in this s___", for example.

That example right there does somewhat illustrate the strength of William Monahan's writing in this film. There wasn't really one line of dialog in the whole 128 minute runtime that to me stood out as original or interesting. There were admittedly a few moments of humor which were a pleasant respite, but apart from that the writing was pretty by-the-numbers. David Ignatious' novel might have been good enough to build a decent film around, but I guess no one was interested in doing anything different.

Body Of Lies is a movie which everybody will respond to differently. Many will like it much more than I did, many will dislike it much more than I did. Personally I just felt underwhelmed by the whole thing. It was average, and if it were some other director, I wouldn't even bother writing a review. I would think ho-hum and go about my day. But Ridley Scott used to make such brilliant films and I just can't understand why he's stuck to formula so much in Body Of Lies.

We have seen this exact movie at least half a dozen times before. Filmmakers need to go about this type of film in a new, more unique way. Otherwise they should just stop trying.
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9/10
Raymond Chandler, but with bowling, doobies, and the occasional acid flashback.
18 September 2008
Words cannot describe the magnificent, wonderful and strange beauty that is 'The Big Lebowski'. Take your typical noir tale of kidnapping, double-crossing and sleazy pornographers, and throw in 'The Dude', a pot smoking pacifist with a penchant for Creedance and white Russians.

Without going into the plot, it's an amazing achievement that The Coen brothers have weaved an incredibly intricate film noir story into a bright and colorful comedy with each character funnier and more outlandish than the next.

With a fantastic soundtrack, beautiful visual style, a first-rate cast and a tonne of laughs, 'The Big Lebowski' is not only a great film, it happens to be this reviewers favorite Coen brothers outing to date.

It's more than noir. it's more than comedy. It's ah... You know... The Big Lebowski, man.
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The Hollowmen (2008)
Too early to say for sure, but the first episode gets a thumbs up.
9 July 2008
Giving a rating out of 10 seems silly, as I've only seen the first episode, but this show does look promising.

The style of The Hollowmen is very similar to Frontline, being shot in a candid documentary style. Also like Frontline, it is satire covering important issues. basically the theme is: A government only cares about how they are perceived, rather than caring about any real issue itself.

A nice guitar rift breaks up the action, and a great opening credit sequence brought me right in to the action. As far as the cast, it seems first rate. Never seeing the Primeminister is something that has been done before, but it does add a certain realism to the show, by saving The Hollowmen from using a fictional person as our leader. I've never really found Merrick Watts all that funny, but I guess time will tell on his character.

Rob Sitch's character is hilarious, constantly writing down and repeating buzz-worded nothings and talking a lot of hot air, whilst Lachy Hume's character, though possibly as spineless as Sitch's, does seem to have things to say. I'm sure a strong and interesting dynamic will develop.

I look forward to future episodes.
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6/10
Die Hard ended with the trilogy.
11 August 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Live Free or Die Hard could possibly be shortened to "Live Free". The similarities between this film and the previous Die Hard titles ends with the names of the characters. Don't get me wrong, as an action film, Live Free or Die Hard is a passable effort. But as a Die Hard film, it's nothing short of a total failure.

Whatever insanity crossed through the producers minds when deciding to edit this film down to a pg-13 is truly beyond comprehension. It would have been bad enough to film the movie as a pg-13, but to edit out nearly all of the profanities in the film is a total travesty. Not only is it un-Die Hard, it was painfully obvious. John McClane would have a small monologue, and the camera would dart around the room in a desperate effort to hide the fact that the word f___ was probably coming out of his mouth every 3 seconds.

Timothy Olyphant may be a promising young actor, but whether it was the direction, or Olyphant himself, he does not work as a Die Hard villain. His bulging eyes and semi-threatening dialogue wasn't enough to cover his overall, rather bland performance.

We yet again see the somewhat-new-but-already-tired female kung-fu bad-guy gimmick, and despite the fact that she gets her ass kicked, it's still extremely contrived.

Nothing felt right in this film. Even Bruce Willis' performance was not even remotely similar to the John McClane we all know and love. Willis could have been playing any other action hero. There was none of the jovial bravado that defined his character in the previous films, it was instead replaced with crappy, pg-13ed dialogue and poor comic relief from Justin Long(who could well be a fine young actor, but just got annoying in this movie). Even the violence, while frequent, was shrouded by constant camera cuts and elaborate stunts.

The first Die Hard film was, in my opinion, one of the finest action films ever made. And while swearing and violence aren't always necessary in a film, they simply ARE in a Die Hard movie.

Worth watching to build your own opinion, but personally, i consider the Die Hard series as ended after 'Die Hard With a Vengeance'.
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Bloodsport (1988)
5/10
Pretty cool fighting but often cringe-worthy.
10 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
There seems to be a trend in films that are supposedly about fighting tournaments, where the actual fighting is secondary to the plot, so much so in some instances that there's barely any fighting at all. That certainly can't be said for Bloodsport. The first twenty minutes of the film build up the plot and cover Frank Dux(Van Damn) who is a marine or something, his childhood and his martial arts training. The rest is mostly hardcore fighting. Mostly.

Obviously with a movie like Bloodsport, you have to take the plot with a pinch of salt. Unfortunately for Bloodsport, i didn't have enough salt. As cool as it was to see Forest Whitaker in an early role, his character as a Navy/Army(Dunno?) detective trying to track down Dux in Hong Kong was almost as useless as Dux's love interest, who served to be a massive annoyance. I'm not sure why it's considered necessary to have a love interest who inputs nothing to the film but a brief period of trying to hold the male protagonist back. It's misogynistic and very boring to watch. There were a couple of cheesy montages with cued 80's music(How did they not think it would date?) and some awful dialogue too. I'm not even going to touch on Dux's friendship with fellow fighter and bikie, Ray Jackson(Played by Donald Gibb). WAY bad. I don't mean to sound shallow and or seem like i don't like an engaging plot, but lets be honest, its a poorly scripted, awkwardly acted fight-fest, there's no need for shoddy story lines.

Anyway, down to the fighting. It was exceptionally well choreographed, and you can tell that the fighters know what they're doing. Occasionally the punches looked a little soft, and Van Damn's odd wailing gets gets a bit distracting, but it's hard to care much when there's so much fighting going on. The villain was great, but the final confrontation between him and Dux is a tad disappointing.

Like i said the acting is downright awkward, especially Van Damn's, he is awful(Though not as awful as the child actor playing his younger self, DAMN!) But then, he's not there for his acting. He's there to look good and fight. On that though, there were a few too many buff shots of Van Damn, his huge muscular body was constantly thrown in your face, as well as a gratuitous shot of Van Damns butt, which made me feel like i was watching gay porn. They could have at least thrown in some breasts, it was the 80's after all! Without giving too much away, for a film called Bloodsport, there just wasn't enough blood. I wanted necks broken and faces crushed. I didn't want half an hour of cheesy music, silly chases, unnecessary love scenes, and male butts shots. But hey, that's just me.

Five out of Ten.
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