Reviews

This movie had many beautiful qualities. The story is as old as time; it is the romantic and beautiful study of lovers separated by class. I would say this is closer to Cinderella than Romeo & Juliet. The movie is full of beautiful pictures, and it is visually very impressive. This story is taking place in Korea, so even though the story is not new, the characters, the behaviors, the setting, the environment, the physical tools they use, the daily habits of the characters are so different that you don't feel like you are watching a classic. However, the "Pandori" style was a challenge of endurance. Open mindedness has nothing to do with this, I cannot imagine anyone hearing the voice of that Pandori singer for the first time enjoying it. I wouldn't call this "music" because it mainly consisted of howling. It was interesting to pay attention to the words of this so-called song, because it was describing the movie act by act, and the emotions of the characters. However, the sound was unbearable. I wished I had ear plugs with me, I believe it would have increased my enjoyment of the movie quite a bit. I knew what it would be like when I walked into this movie, but nothing could have prepared me to the 2 hour howling that would come. So my emotions during the movie consisted of pain, agony and a desire to walk out during the singing, and mesmerized watching in the rare moments the singing stopped.

This is a very long and sometimes tedious story about a woman who decides to betray her husband with his best friend and living the consequences. The movie is partly told in the past tense, as part of a discussion between the woman and an older man. The switching back and forth between recollections and real time makes the viewer often impatient. At first, I tried to sympathize with one or more of the characters, but after the first half, I realized that this was not possible. What kind of a sane woman betrays a loving, sexually satisfying, handsome orchestra conductor of a husband with an ugly, aggressive, egocentric and unsuccessful loser was beyond me. I looked hard, but could not see the temptation. Slowly, all characters started acting more and more irrationally and after a while, I just started not caring about what would happen next, and began counting the minutes. Toward the end, bad things started to happen one after another, several revelations were made, but it was too late for me to start caring.

I truly enjoyed this movie, and I don't have much to add to the 94 comments before me. However, this is probably because I have been living in the USA for 5 years, and to a certain extent Americanized. If you are reading this review from a country other than USA, and if you have no familiarity with U.S. culture and history whatsoever, YOU HAVE LITTLE CHANCE OF ENJOYING THIS MOVIE. I made the mistake of recommending this movie to friends back home, and none so far seemed to enjoy it. In fact they had pretty harsh comments about it. There may be several reasons for this. The south accent is very difficult to understand to a foreigner. So most of them had to rely on the subtitles, which can seldom do justice to movies. In this movie this problem is more severe, because this is not an action film. This film is heavily based on verbal dialogue, and you have to understand it in English to get it. Even when you know enough English to decipher the dialogue, whether you will find it funny or not is likely a function of your familiarity with the U.S. culture. If you need someone to blame after seeing the movie and not enjoying it, just blame whoever is importing these films into your country and marketing them as the next big thing... So, you are hereby warned...

I have seen several movies where a movie was very interesting at the time it was filmed, but is barely watchable today if not funny because of technological obsoleteness. This is not one of them. The plot is very interesting and is not at all predictable, making me wonder why it was not copied by later movies. This movie made me proud of myself for going to that art cinema without knowing anything about it, and watching it with a few other poor souls who had nothing else to do on a Friday afternoon. Definitely the best b/w movie and the best French movie I have seen, and one of the best films I have seen in the past 5 years.

An ex-convict (stephanois) joins two old friends in planning an ambitious robbery of a jeweller. Made in a time where the subject matter may be novel, today's audience may become annoyed because of the predictability of the plot. Several details are funny when watched today, such as the lock expert opening up a volt with a driller, or people wearing suits and ties at home. I loved the way the violent scenes were covered up (all the beating or shootings were carefully concealed by walls, or piles of brick, or whatever came in the way). It was too long, but I had a good time watching it, mostly because its obsoleteness made it fun to watch.

I hope homeless people in other countries who are really poor do not see this movie. The homelessness of the people in this movie seemed like a conscious choice to me. Most had homes once, then did some bad choices, and went homeless. Then, even though they did nothing to improve their situation, they were given pretty nice homes at the end. It seems nice to be a homeless in a country with a good welfare system! The movie has its funny moments as well as sad ones. I found it more enjoyable than sad.

I loved this movie, although it started out slow, and there was much symbolism. I found some scenes very touching, and found myself thinking about other scenes after the movie. The movie was very picturesque, but I found the music even more impressive. There was one score that was repeated all through the movie and during the end credits and I cannot get it out of my head. I hope to find the soundtrack somewhere. I should mention that there is not much of a storyline. This is the story of Goya's life, which as I understand is not very eventful. However, the story telling is just beautiful, and I couldn't keep my eyes of the screen, while my husband slept all through the movie.

I did not read X-men as a kid. I never heard of the characters until I saw the movie fragments. Nevertheless, I am a sci-fi fan, and I saw the movie in its first day. What I felt during the movie was not mentioned by the other critics, so here it goes.

I am sure some clueless people may be surprised to hear this, but females don't go to see a movie to see the great special effects, or action scenes. Even though I see all the sci-film films, the ones I truly enjoy are the ones that have the touch of some romanticism, some degree of attraction between characters. This is why I and all the females I know enjoyed Mission impossible II better than I (Not a representative sample, but still...) My bf says romanticism is like a very important side dish to me. I don't like it by itself, but it has to be present with the main course for me to enjoy the dinner. From this perspective, X-men sucked. I am not saying there should have been new romantic interests developed between wolverine and rogue (I wouldn't mind this, but fans would go mad). I am saying, if Dr. Jane Grey is the love interest of cyclops, I have to be able to see this during the film. There was no attraction between the two, and she was flirting with wolverine (very unconvincingly). It was a mediocre film for me, but not because of its action sequences.

Overall this was an enjoyable movie, but if you are at all concerned with loyalty to the book, you may be disappointed. You will feel like you are in an alternate P&P universe, where everything is different. On the one hand, Mr. Darcy does very little to deserve being called proud. On the other hand, Lizzie is both prejudiced and proud, compensating for Mr. Darcy; but this makes me wonder why on earth Darcy tolerates this woman, let alone fall in love with her. I also wonder, after this much flirting, why Lizzie refuses Darcy. Jane is only a bit more intelligent than her youngest sister. Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. Bennett engage in a car chase, Mr. Collins is librarian rather than a clergyman, and wierdest of all, Catherine De Burgh really cares about Darcy's well being, and likes Lizzie. The costumes look like everyone is going to a ball all the time, and I don't think they reflect the period.

I believe this is an enjoyable movie to someone who is not familiar with Jane Austen's work, and someone who is just looking forward to seeing a classic movie. If you are like me and read the book a few times and watched the 1995 version over and over again, you may be disappointed to see that this is a movie about a very different Bennett family, who happen to live in Longbourn, who happen to meet someone called Darcy, but there ends the resemblance...

Sadly, I cried at the end. I think overall it was a good movie in that, it was beautifully pictured, and I thought the storytelling was good. However, I felt closer to Colin Firth's character, which made me hate the love story that revealed itself. I felt she had no right to fall in love with that guy, because she had someone who really cared about her, and who did nothing wrong to deserve this treatment. If Firth's character had some sort of flaw, I would probably be touched. Right now, I believe all deserved what happened to them.

This is a very long, but also very enjoyable movie (originally a tv series) set against the background of WWII. Guy Pringle (Branagh), a university professor, leaves Britain and comes to Romania to teach. He has a love for his wife (Thompson) and all the people surrounding them. We watch his passion to make a difference when other people are escaping from Germans marching toward their city and gain influence from within. Relationships develop between the couple and locals, and we start to care about most of them. We see how horrible everyday life could be with the constant threat of war, but how it isn't. We observe Guy treat everyone around him with good intentions, at the expense of his wife, and we want to shake him to come to his senses. We follow their journey to other countries, and the movie is a joy to watch from beginning to end. There are a few memorable scenes between Guy and his wife that I cannot forget, and Branagh really touches me when he cries. The acting by all the cast is simply wonderful, and the movie is definitely worth spending 3 hours.

The scarlet pimpernel is a wonderful story that has everything: It is the story of an English baronet saving French aristocrats from the guillotine during the revolution. In order to protect his identity, he disguises himself as a good for nothing snob. He loves his wife, but believes that she is responsible for the death of an aristocrat family, and therefore treats her indifferently. It has all the excitement and romance you may expect from a good story. This version is the 3rd one I watched, and is a very good one. Even though it is from an earlier era of filmmaking, it captures the essence of the story beautifully. I would still prefer 1982 version of this story, but this one is also very good, and infinitely superior to the most recent version starring Richard Grant.

This is a very interesting film about how even though people try to do the best thing for themselves and for others around them by using the available information, the result may be unexpected due to the unknowns. Nina loses her fiancee Gordon in WWI, without ever being together with him. She decides to become a nurse, to commit her life to injured soldiers, and thereby to Gordon. Her father, uncle Charlie, a doctor at the hospital all want the best for her, and give advices to her to make her happy in the long run. However, the advices they give her bring her lots of dilemmas and put her into unforeseen positions. I enjoyed this piece overall. It became somewhat boring towards the end. The characters' thoughts are expressed by making them talk to themselves, and sometimes this may become confusing and irritating. (There are points where it is difficult to differentiate whether someone is talking to oneself, or with others). Still, even though I rented this one from the library without any expectations, enjoyed it very much. I should also mention that Kenneth Branagh's screen time is about 3 minutes, and at the end of the movie.

There are 2 reasons to see this movie (and only 2). Really beautiful scenery, and wonderful acting by Kenneth Branagh. Other than these, I found the story underdeveloped, and the movie ended just as it was beginning to get interesting. We see some flashbacks of DH Lawrence's life. However, whereas the cover of the movie suggests that the focus would be on the relationship between DH Lawrence and a married woman, this relationship is not the focus of the movie. In fact, this is a movie that looks at DH Lawrence, without focusing. Therefore, one is surprised when the movie ends, but not sorry.